276 A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS THING. 



presuming to ask why or wherefore they are given. 

 The moment he is allowed to give his opinion, he is 

 spoiled : defend me from a knowing*groom ! If I was 

 engaging a man, and he told me he could attend horses 

 without a veterinary surgeon if they wanted one, I 

 should reject him at once. God help the horses ! they 

 never would be without a ball, drench, or powder in 

 their stomachs. This sort of knowledge may be very 

 well (in a very limited way) for a stud groom who has 

 20 or 30 hunters under his care ; but then I should 

 take care that Barbadoes aloes, soap, a few carmina- 

 tives, some nitre, a little soap liniment, goulard, and 

 a little dressing or hot stopping for the feet, consti- 

 tuted his pharmacopoeia. If he began talking of 

 calomel, arsenic, alteratives, absorbents, digestives, 

 sudorifics, &c., the moment he had done, I should 

 have done with him. Let him see that his men under 

 him strap : if a horse is amiss, let him report at head- 

 quarters that he is so : I will answer for it my 

 monthly report of the state of my stable is better 

 than that of those who trust to one of these vete- 

 rinary grooms. 



Both horses have now been had the six weeks, so 

 we will have a look at them, beginning with A.'s 

 nag. Being fat when bought, he concluded he 

 wanted nothing but work to get him into condition. 

 Certainly not ; nothing but work to get him into 

 bad condition : it has got his flesh off, and he is 

 lighter, it is true ; so would a pound of butter be if 

 we exposed it to the kitchen fire : I have no doubt 

 many dealers' horses might be melted down by the 

 same process. I have never tried this, not being an 

 experimentalist, and having an old-fashioned plan of 

 my own for doing it by other means. But others 



