THE HORSE. 213 



horses of all qualifications, and hard-mouthed and 

 suspicious leaders should always be backed by steady, 

 sound, and powerful wheelers, a dispensation under 

 which, a real and able performer on the box pre- 

 supposed, no leaders, whatever their character, could 

 possibly run away with a coach to the length of five 

 hundred yards. 



" A wheel-horse, being a kicker, should work on 

 the near side. A leader, being a kicker, should be 

 driven with a ring on the reins, to prevent his getting 

 a rein under his tail. A wheeler fresh in condition 

 and ticklish, may kick over his trace, especially in a 

 short turn, when the traces are necessarily slack : 

 This frequently happens in the crowded streets of 

 London to gentlemen's coaches. A light hip-strap is 

 the best, or only remedy, however slow it may look. 

 Speaking to coachhorses from the box, is now con- 

 sidered slow, but it is not without its effect." Our 

 best performers use it occasionally, adopting certain 

 modulations of the voice, a check, or whistle, to which 

 the horses become accustomed. Here Nimrod gives 

 an anecdote of a mail coachman, who being engaged 

 expressly on purpose to drive horses which had been 

 reported as unable to keep time, used the rare expe- 

 dient of belabouring each horse with a broomstick, 

 in the stable, for at least five minutes, about an hour 

 before starting, and mirabile dictu, succeeded, the 

 horses never losing time afterwards. Now had I 

 been apprized of this, and endowed with the same 

 tyrannical authority over this fellow as he was over 

 the poor brutes, he should have been flogged, not at 

 the cart's a — , but at the halbert, where he should 



