BUYING HORSES. 57 



lost the courage and ambition, as well as action they 

 had when bought, being ignorant of the cause, you 

 either blame yourself for buying them or blame the 

 dealer for ha\ing deceived you. 



I once heard a lady remark to her coachman, " Robert 

 the horses don't step near so high as they did when we 

 bought them. Do you suppose the dealer put anything 

 into their feet to make them act?" Noav, I -dare say this 

 question has been asked more than once, and some 

 people are stupid enough to imagine that the dealers use 

 artificial means to make their horses step high whilst 

 being sold, but I can assure my readers they who im- 

 agine so are wrong in their surmises. 



The wealthy people of New York are not so fortunate 

 as their friends in equal circumstances in the large 

 cities of Europe, who can go to any one of the several 

 large sale stables and select a pair of horses which, if 

 they buy, they will find are not only well matched and 

 thoroughly broken, but have good manners and fine 

 mouths and every other essential point that time, pa- 

 tience and experienced handling could effect. How dif- 

 ferent the experience of buyers of such horses in New 

 York! I have known a dozen different pairs of horses 

 sent to an intending buyer and all returned as unsatis- 

 factory through some defect, difference in size, color, 

 way of going or whatever it might be^ which the dealer 



