VALE. 419 



dealers of different sorts: but the difference of the 

 case is very wide indeed. The pickpocket knows how 

 to pick your pocket, and will always do it\ if he can : 

 the dealer may know how to do it also in his way ; so 

 does every tradesman, but they do not always do it ; 

 and I am happy to say there are many who never do. 

 I grant the horse trade affords great facilities for im- 

 position and rascality perhaps no trade more so: 

 the greater the merit then of those men who tread a 

 path so beset with temptations with credit to them- 

 selves and integrity to their customers, who would 

 scorn the practices of a Nickem as much as they 

 would and do the perpetrators of them. Such men 

 and I could point out many are as worthy objects 

 of the esteem of the public, as they are for the imita- 

 tion of their less conscientious brethren in the same 

 avocation. This I give as a Hint to (in concluding the 

 foregoing Hints on) Horse-dealers. 



GENTLEMEN, GENTLEMEN-JOCKS, AND 

 1 GENTLEMEN'S GENTLEMEN. 



IN venturing my crude thoughts on Gentlemen, I am 

 quite aware that to the liberality of mind that forms 

 so prominent a feature in the attributes of the Gentle- 

 man I alone can trust as a shield against those ani- 

 madversions my incompetency to the task may subject 

 me. On this liberality I throw myself in carrying 

 out my very delicate task, trusting that, from the 

 general tenor of my writing on less difficult subjects, 

 where in the present case I may be in error, it will be 



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