260 PRECEPT AND PRACTICE. 



Some from sheer vice ; some from commencing in 

 wantoness, but ending in earnest ; others from 

 neither the one or the other, but from alarm, or 

 having been alarmed, which nine times in ten is 

 the origin of horses kicking in harness ; hence the 

 difficulty, I may say almost impossibility, of ever 

 curing a horse of the habit so as to be able to 

 depend on him. The horse I allude to when 

 I came up had got on to the pavement, and was 

 rattling the old machine about rarely, as if in re- 

 venge for the many weary miles he had [probably 

 at times travelled before it. The driver, who 

 looked out of his place when not driving a mourn- 

 ing-coach, was trying to get the horse disengaged 

 from the cab ; while a man, who seemed to know 

 something of what he was about, had caught the 

 horse by the ear, trying to convert his hands into 

 a twitch. This often succeeds ; but in this case 

 it did not — the horse, in technical phrase, kept 

 ** milling away a good un." My former habit of 

 dealing with such reprobates, and a little presence 

 of mind, served me, or at least it served the owner 



