242 GOING SOMEHOW. 



terial of which each has been made. If we go to a 

 good watchmaker and pay him a good price, he can 

 be almost certain in selling a watch that will go well, 

 and continue to do so, from knowing the goodness of 

 its materials, and the skill employed in putting them 

 together. The manufacturer of any other article can 

 be equally certain of its relative goodness : but I 

 know of no manufacturer of horses ; and until one is 

 found, though our eye can tell us the horse that goes 

 well, we must trust to chance as to how long he will 

 continue to go: the soundness of his materials can 

 only be found out by trial ; and yet such is the per- 

 versity or folly of men in general, that though some 

 one has risked this trial, the horse none the worse for 

 it (indeed the better), and proved to be likely to con- 

 tinue a good and useful servant, it is this very trial 

 that will in nine cases out of ten depreciate him in 

 the estimation of a purchaser. 



I think I can now bring the purchasing a horse 

 and a watch in such close affinity as to bear precisely 

 the same on each. We will suppose a salesman (not 

 a manufacturer) to have twenty new watches sent 

 him for sale, all good-looking, but the maker un- 

 known : in this case neither he nor a purchaser can 

 form any opinion of their goodness, nor have either 

 the slightest means of judging of their relative 

 soundness of material : all that a purchaser can do is 

 to select the one that pleases his eye, and that he 

 finds will at all events go at present. We will say 

 ten of these are sold, and at the end of the year, like 

 horses, some have gone well during the whole time ; 

 others have continued to go for the same time, but 

 badly; some have gone for six months, and then 

 could go no longer ; while some did not go for a 



