HORSES AND HOUNDS. 49 



tlie absurd practice of grooms in stinting them in tlie quantity- 

 given. 



A friend of mine once complained to me of a horse he had, 

 which he said was never satisfied, and he believed would drink 

 a pond dry. " Well," I said, " that is soon cured ; get a large 

 bucket or tub, and put it in his box, and make your man keep 

 filling it to the brim as long as he will drink ; don't let him get 

 to the bottom." He followed my suggestions, and the next time 

 I saw him, he said his horse was quite cured, and never cared 

 about water afterwards. I may here say that when I kept 

 hunters, they had always a large bucket of water standing by 

 them in their boxes, day and night. Of course when they came 

 in hot, from hunting, it was removed, but replaced always 

 when they had been dressed and done up for the night, ^\^len 

 one considers the violent exertions which some horses undergo 

 in the course of the day, added to the hot and impure air 

 breathed by them in their stables, there can be no surprise at 

 their thirst and craving after water. It is not only cruelty, but 

 folly, to deprive them of as much as they require, and unless 

 they have been stinted in the quantity by some ignoramus of a 

 groom, they will not drink more than is good for them. We 

 cannot always say the same of his would-be genius of a master, 

 when seated in the back parlour of the " Lushington Arms." 

 A little learning is a dangerous thing, and the airs some of these 

 stud grooms, as they are called, give themselves, as well as the 

 knowledge they assume of everything connected with horses, 

 are something quite preposterous. To hear them talk and give 

 their opinions, you would suppose they had the whole pharma- 

 copeia at their tingers or tongues' ends, and had been bred up in a 

 veterinary college. What with alterative balls, condition balls, 

 urine balls, and all such trash, is it to be wondered at that horses 

 are sometimes craving for water, or nearly dying of thirst? 

 The wonder is they so long exist under such treatment. _ And 

 then, when Mr. John, the groom, has got his horse and himself 

 into a fix, by an overdose of his condition balls (given for the 

 sole purpose of making the horse look fine in his coat), he goes 

 with a long story to master about his horse being in a very bad 

 way : got the colic, or fret (no wonder) ; better send for Mr. 

 Bolter, the village blacksmith, who sets up for veterinary sur- 

 geon, cow d -ctor, pig and dog doctor, all in one. Exit John. 

 Enter Mr. Bjlter. Mr. Bolter assumes a very serious aspect, 

 looks the horse over, turns up the whites of his eyes, pinches 

 him in the side, pretends to feel the pulse, although he can't 

 quite make out where it lies, and pronounces his opinion. 

 " A very bad case, Mr. John, and as much as I can do to save 



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