188 A HINT. 



tocracy many such capital workmen across a country 

 as to enable them to equal some of our professional 

 artists in a steeple-race. Racing would probably 

 produce the same results, but that the light weights 

 necessary to this amusement constantly require de- 

 privation and exertion to attain that few gentlemen 

 are found willing to submit to. 



Now all these pursuits undoubtedly render those 

 who participate in them first-rate judges of the quali- 

 fications, powers, and merits of the horse for all such 

 purposes as gentlemen apply them to ; and the con- 

 stant and consequent buying and selling of such 

 horses renders them pretty good judges of their re- 

 lative value as to price. Long may such men enjoy 

 such amusements, and long may they possess fortunes 

 to do so ! There are without doubt pursuits of an 

 higher order, pursuits that produce more beneficial 

 results to mankind in general ; but every man of for- 

 tune has an undoubted right to spend that fortune in 

 such pursuits as he conceives affords him the most 

 gratification; and provided that pursuit be a harm- 

 less one, no one has a right to interfere with it. The 

 pursuits of the sportsman, while carried on by the 

 gentleman, are generally not only harmless, but bene- 

 ficial to others. They give employment to many, 

 and occasion a great deal of money to be circulated. 

 This alone must benefit others : how far it may the 

 sportsman himself is quite another affair : should the 

 time ever arrive when from a reverse of fortune 

 he is no longer able to enjoy them, there is perhaps 

 no living being who can apply his knowledge to so 

 little beneficial account to himself as the sportsman, 

 or one who can derive so little advantage from the 

 money he has spent in his pursuits. There have been 



