510 HORSE-DEALING. 



horses, and understands all the virtues and vices 

 of the whole species. He makes his first applica- 

 tion to a horse, as some lovers do to a mistress, 

 with special regard to eyes and legs. He has 

 more ways to hide defects in horse-flesh than wo- 

 men have decays in faces, with which oaths and 

 lies are the most general accompaniments. He un- 

 derstands the chronology of a horse's mouth most 

 critically, and will find out the year of his nativity 

 by it as certainly as if he had been at the mare's 

 labour that bore him ; and he is a strict jobserver 

 of saint-days, only for the fairs that are kept on 

 them." 



After all, few horse-dealers are really good judges 

 of horses. It is true, that many of them possess a 

 peculiar rapidity of vision, the eff"ect of a quickened 

 intellect ; and that, in the inspection of a horse, 

 one of their eagle glances will comprehend more 

 than half an hour's scrutiny from other eyes, yet 

 this chiefly has reference to what may be termed 

 his selling points. They too often buy horses as 

 butchers do bullocks, by their size and weight ; and 

 as fat conceals many faults, their highest notion of 

 condition is being fat. Of action — that is, proper, 

 lasting action — they are for the most part ignorant, 

 and, for that reason, very few of them have a good 

 judgment in hunters, which are for the most part 

 selected for them by agents or friends, some of 

 whom are always on the '" look out" for them. 



The vocabulary of the horse-dealing fraternity is 

 not less amusing than pithy, having what is called 

 a '' flash" term for almost every description of 



