190 A LITTLE POACHING. 



him in so doing: but to learn that business as a 

 tradesman requires years of such humiliation as no 

 gentleman would or could submit to. Being a first- 

 rate judge of a horse will not enable him to be a 

 horse-dealer. A gentleman may know perfectly the 

 relative value of horses, and may easily ascertain that 

 of any other article of merchandise. So far as buying 

 and selling goes, he may even learn where, and in 

 some measure how, to buy and sell to the best advan- 

 tage : but this no more qualifies him for a tradesman 

 than learning the newest fashions would make the 

 tradesman a gentleman. I hope I have said enough 

 on this subject to prevent any gentleman fancying 

 that should he ever find it necessary, he can as a 

 dernier ressource, turn those pursuits he followed as 

 an amateur to any account as a tradesman. I have 

 heard many say they were certain they could. I 

 only earnestly hope they will never have occasion 

 to try. 



I have stated, that no gentleman ever has or 

 ever will succeed as a regular horse-dealer. That 

 there are, however, many who in a private way to a 

 very considerable extent deal in horses is a notorious 

 fact, and a fact as much to be regretted as it is impos- 

 sible to be denied. It is a subject of still further re- 

 gret, that among them are found those who in every 

 other transaction are men of unblemished honour 

 and integrity. If these gentlemen conceive that they 

 carry on this underhand kind of private trade without 

 its calling forth very severe animadversions from those 

 who abstain from it, they very much deceive them- 

 selves : and they labour under the influence of a still 

 further error if they suppose they can continue its 

 practice without losing very considerably in point of 



