FIRST-HAND BITS OF STABLE LORE 



ings, and their presence really adds to the pleasure 

 of the owner. We have the roads and the object 

 points of romantic, picturesque, or historical inter- 

 est in most localities ; we have the vehicles, 

 horses, etc., obtainable at trifling outlay, and we 

 lack simply the enterprise and the appreciation 

 necessary to make the pleasure vehicle drawn by 

 four horses as common on our thoroughfares as 

 the private or public equipage of any other type. 

 Perhaps, in its private form, coaching has for 

 competitors too many other attractive and rather 

 costly sports for it to be more generally popular ; 

 and again, the driving of four horses has been, 

 through lack of enterprise, and the machinations 

 of professional teachers, who strive for private 

 ends to encourage the belief that it is an accom- 

 plishment most difficult of acquirement, held as a 

 most serious and dangerous undertaking, whereas 

 it is the acme of simplicity for any one who can 

 successfully navigate one or a pair, and infinitely 

 easier than driving tandem, which few aspiring 

 Jehus hesitate to attempt. Four horses, in a 

 way, combine to keep each other in the straight 

 and narrow paths of rectitude, and even the 

 "rawest" green one finds plenty to attend to at 

 such work, and has little opportunity for sky- 



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