THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 37 



with the newsman of a provincial paper, always 

 stopped at the houses of the several customers, 

 although they were sixty or seventy in number. But 

 further, there were two persons in the route who took 

 one paper between them, and each claimed the privi- 

 lege of receiving it first on the alternate Sunday. 

 The horse soon became accustomed to this regulation ; 

 although the parties lived two miles asunder, he 

 stopped once a fortnight at the door of the half- 

 customer at Thorpe, and once a fortnight at that of 

 the half-customer at Chertsey ; and never did he 

 forget this arrangement^ which lasted several years, 

 or stop unnecessarily after he had once thoroughly 

 understood the rule. 



The docility and intelligence of the horse are 

 abundantly shown in the feats he is trained to per- 

 form in the Circus ; but those which he is self-taught 

 are still more interesting. Lord Brougham in his 

 " Dissertations" says, he knew a pony that used to 

 open the latch of the stable door, and also raise the 

 lid of the corn chest ; and he notices the instance of 

 a horse opening the wicket-gate of a field by pressing 

 down the upright bar, as a man would do, " actions," 

 he observes, " which the animals must have learned 

 from observation, as it is very unlikely that they were 

 taught." Such feats are not uncommon; but the 

 following is, we believe, unique. In 1794, a gentle- 

 man in Leeds had a horse which, after having been 



