STABLE-TALK AND TABLE-TALK, 



&c. &c. 



CUJUM PECUS. 



RACE-HORSES CONSIDERED AS PUBLIC PROPERTY. 

 Vix ea nostra voco. OVID. 



IT has been, I believe, a generally received opinion 

 in this country, when a man has purchased any kind 

 of property, paid for it, and it has been delivered to 

 him, that the property becomes his, and, provided 

 he does nothing with it to infringe the laws of his 

 country, he has an undisputed right to do what he 

 pleases with it; as this right would be allowed, 

 whether he bought an estate, a house, or ten hunters 

 that should cost him a thousand pounds, or any 

 given sum. Any one might naturally suppose, if a 

 man chose to give a thousand pounds for a race-horse, 

 that he would be allowed the same freedom of will in 

 what he might please to do with him. I should have 

 thought the same thing when I was fifteen, but I 

 knew better before I was twenty. Now, so far from 

 being considered at liberty to do what he pleases with 

 such a horse, he will very coolly be told what is tan- 

 tamount to this, that he is not his property : on the 

 VOL. i. B 



