42 PEECEPT AND PEACTICE. 



them, which had been no trifling affair, ceased also. 

 So we will leave him for a time, and consider the 

 different modes of purchasing horses. 



The usual way for persons to buy horses is naturally 

 enough to go to a dealer, as we go to a dealer in any 

 other commodity of which we stand in need ; and to 

 many persons it is the readiest way. But the prac- 

 tised judge goes a different way to work; in a general 

 way, he is a bad customer to dealers, not from the 

 idea that very erroneously deters many persons from 

 doing so — namely, the fear of being, in common par- 

 lance, " taken in :" in the first place, he knows too 

 much for that ; in the second, he very properly con- 

 siders a respectable dealer in horses as honest a man 

 as a dealer in wine — and, in truth, there is quite as 

 much opportunity for deception in the one trade as 

 in the other — and, from the experience I have had, I 

 should say the deception used in the latter trade 

 is fully equal to any occasionally practised in the 

 former. 



It is held a heinous crime in the breeder to knock 

 out a couple of teeth to promote the earlier appear- 



