408 THE HORSE. 



they make good grooms. If so, they keep all that are made good 

 at home. I never saw a passable one, and consider them of all 

 nations the least apt to the horse. They never possess method- 

 ical habits — than which no one thing is so indispensable to a 

 well-kept stable — they are almost always slovenly, untidy, and 

 qnick, almost to a miracle, in concealing faults, shirking duties, 

 and escaping blame. Generally ignorant, they are as generally 

 obstinately conceited, and resolute in doing what they choose to 

 consider best, in spite of remonstrance or positive orders. They 

 are, moreover, too often cruel, and almost always rough and 

 brutal to the beasts under their charge. For whatever else 

 I might take an Irishman, I would have him, as a groom, at no 

 price. 



Frenchmen and some Grermans — Hanoverians and Prussians, 

 especially, make good stable servants, though they have not the 

 intelligent quickness of the American, or the natty knowingness 

 of the English groom. They are patient, industrious, very 

 methodical, and the Germans, especially, exceedingly fond of 

 and attentive to the beasts in their charge. One may do worse 

 than have a French or German groom. 



There is another class, here, the negro, who makes in some 

 respects, a good stable servant. He will probably not be free 

 from the national defects of his race ; he will, likely enough, be 

 lazy if not closely looked after, will lie a good deal, do some 

 small pilfering, and, now and then, get drunk. But he habitually 

 loves the horse, and is proud of his appearance ; and will, per- 

 haps, work more faithfully on him than on any thing else. He 

 is almost invariably good-natured, and I have observed that 

 horses become more attached to negroes, than to any other 

 servants. 



If a master is willing to look after his horses a little, and after 

 his man a good deal, he may do many more unwise things than 

 to get a smart, steady, cleanly and intelligent man of color in 

 his stables. 



If he will not look after things himself, but expects them to 

 go on rightly without him, he will soon find that they will go 

 one way only, and that way is to the bad — from whatever coun- 

 try he may select his groom, in the United States. 



The duties of the groom, considered in relation to time, 



