LORDS AND COMMONERS. 147 



I have had pretty much to do with stablemen 

 and boys of all sorts and grades, from the riding 

 exercise boy to the stud-groom and the wearer of 

 the tier-on- tier caxon, and I must say I never 

 found that any fanatical feelings of religion could 

 be laid to their charge. Still I have seen in- 

 stances where the researches of the two last-men- 

 tioned functionaries have been deep enough to 

 carry them on to one particular parable, which 

 appears to have taken a firm hold of, and made a 

 lively impression on, their imaginations; and, 

 singular enough, but so it is, the researches of 

 many hay, straw, and corn dealers appear to have 

 reached precisely the same point, for " Take thy 

 bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty," is 

 pretty generally understood by both parties. 



Never having been so situated in life as to 

 warrant my giving two hundred a year to a stud- 

 groom, or, in fact, keeping a stud-groom at all, 

 it follows, as a matter of course, that my horses, 

 in every way, cost me less keeping than those of 

 the man who did so. Not that they ate a grain 

 of corn less than Lord Plymouth's; but I will 

 answer for it, by their condition, they ate all 

 that was paid for. Nor would I allow them to 

 be less comfortably lodged, or the stable in any 

 one particular less in perfect order; but I will 

 answer its being done by proportionably fewer 

 hands. I detest badly made, badly turned out. 



