50 DIETY STABLES. 



Such are the tools of the stable. The desideratum is, firstly, 

 to have a workman who can use them properly ; secondly, who 

 vnll use them when needful ; and thirdly, keep them in their 

 proper place when not wanted. 



The duties of a groom are, principally, comprised in the 

 following summary, viz.: — Feeding and grooming the horses; 

 attention to the stable and its appendages ; and a general and 

 exact care of everything within, or belonging to it. It is 

 disagreeable to go into a stable, and see its interior in a state 

 of disorder ; and the place half buried with the accumulated 

 dust and dirt of years. A stable should be kept clean, and 

 neither tools nor articles of any kind should be allowed within 

 it, but such as are to be found either in their proper place, or 

 in constant use. The want of care and attention in matters 

 relating to order and cleanliness, are but too common in 

 numbers of stables. The spare stall of the stable, for instance, 

 (and few stables of any pretension are without one) may be 

 occupied with the stumps of worn out brooms ; broken pieces 

 of wood; quantities of hay ropes, in a half rotted state ; old tubs; 

 old bottle hampers; bones and fragments of broken food ; whilst 

 to crown the whole, it very likely may stink most intolerably 

 of dogs. The cupboard may be filled with rotten dusters ; 

 the windows with old blacking bottles, and pieces of broken 

 glass. The paint of the wood work in the higher parts of the 

 stable, of a dull leaden colour ; and the corners and borders of 

 the ceiling rejoice in a number of antediluvian cobwebs. 

 People who have their stable in a condition similar to what I 

 describe, appear to retain useless lumber with a feeling akin 

 to veneration, so studiously is this indescribable collection of 

 things preserved year after year, that one might suppose some 

 important principle, in relation either to use or ornament, would 

 be seriously compromised by its removal. Such debris, however, 



