THE FARMER'S. 35 



from her. A roomy mare, with some blood in her, and with most of the 

 good points, will alone answer his purpose. She may bear about her the 

 marks of honest work (the fewer of these, however, the better), but she 

 must not have any disease. There is scarcely a malady to which the 

 horse is subject that is not hereditary. Contracted feet, curb, spavin, 

 roaring, thick wind, blindness, notoriously descend from the sire or dam to 

 the foal. Mr. Roberts, in that useful publication, * The Veterinarian,* 

 says, " Last summer I was asked my opinion of a horse. I approved of 

 his formation with the exception of the hocks, where there happened to be 

 two curbs. I was then told his sister was in the same stable : she also 

 had two curbs. Knowing the sire to be free from these defects, I in- 

 quired about the dam: she also had two confirmed curbs. She was at 

 this time running with a foal of hers, two years old, by another horse, and 

 he also had two curbs." 



The foal should be well taken care of for the first two years. It is bad 

 policy to stint, or half-starve, the growing colt. 



The colt, whether intended for a hunter or carriage-horse, may be earlier 

 handled, but should not be broken-in until three years old ; and then the 

 very best breaking-in for the carriage-horse is to make him earn a little 

 of his living. Let him be put to harrow or light plough. Going over the 

 rough ground will teach him to lift his feet well, and give him that high 

 and shewy action, excusable in a carriage-horse, but excusable in no other. 

 In the succeeding winter he will be perfectly ready for the town or 

 country market. 



THE COACH-HORSE*. 



This animal has fully shared in the progress of improvement, and is as 

 different from what he was fifty years ago as it is possible to conceive. 



* Wheel carriages, bearing any resemblance to chariots, first came into use in the 

 reign of Richard 11. about the year 1381 ; they were called ivhirlicotes, and were little 

 better than litters or cotes {cots) placed on wheels. We are told by Master John Stowe, 

 that "Richard II., being threatened by the rebels of Kent, rode from the Tower of London 

 to the Miles End, and with him his mother, because she was sick and weak, in a whirli- 

 cote;" and this is described as an ugly veliicle of four boards put together in a clumsy 

 manner. 



In the following year he married Anne of Luxembourg, who introduced the riding upon' 

 side-saddles ; aud so " was the riding in those whirlicotes forsaken, except at coronations 

 and suchlike spectacles." 



Coaches were not used until the time of Elizabeth, when we ai-e told (Stowe's Survey 

 of London and W^estminster, book i.) " divers great ladies made them coaches, and rode in 

 them up and down the countries to the great admiration of all the beholders." The fashion 

 soon spread, and he adds, what is often too true in the present day, " the world nms 

 on wheels with many whose parents were glad to go on foot." 



These coaches were heavy and imwieldy, and probably bore some rough resemblance to 

 the state coaches now used occasionally in court processions. 



The rate of travelling was as slow as the clumsiness of the horses and vehicle would natu- 

 rally indicate. King George II. died early on Saturday morning, Oct. 21, 1760 : the 

 Duke of Devonshire, who was lord chamberlain, arrived in town from Chatsworth in three 

 days ; but a fourth and a fifth day passing over, and the lord steward, the Duke of Rutland, 

 not making his appearance, although he had not so far to travel by more than thirty miles, 

 Mr. Speaker Onslov/ made this apology for him, that " the Duke of Devonshire travelled 

 at a prodigious rate, not less ihanjifty miles a cloy ,'" 



To travel in the stage-coach from London to Epsom^ sixteen miles, then took nearly 

 the whole day, and the passengers dined on the road. The coach from Edinburgh to 

 London started once a month, and occupied sixteen or eighteen days on the journey. A 

 person may now start from Edinburgh on Saturday evening, have two spare days in Lon- 

 don, and be back again at the Scotch metropolis to breakfast on the next Saturday, lU' 



P 2 



