]71 HOllSK WAltUANTY. 



is somotliiiipf almut liorso dealing wliicli has a de- 

 basing influence on many who have much to do 

 with it, and Englishmen all over the world are 

 supposed or suspected to be quite knowing enough 

 on the subject. The motto on the title page of 

 this work, taken from a letter of Cicero ^vritten 

 many hundi-ed years ago, may be freely translated 

 thus : "You who think yoursolvcs very clever, take 

 care you are not done by British horse dealers ;" 

 from which it woidd appear that, oven in those 

 days, Englishmen had the character of sharpness 

 in horse dealing, and that, moreover, this shai-p- 

 ness was not lessened by an over-abundance of 

 means may also be inferred by another passage 

 from the next letter of the same classic writer to 

 the same person, where he says, in effect, "they 

 are badly off in England," — " In lin'faiuiia nihil 

 esse audio, ncquc (iiiri uequv (wgoiti" a state not 

 unkno^^^l to many rui'al horse dealers of the present 

 day. Oddly enough, the best horses now di-iven 

 in liomc are supplied by English dealere. It 

 may then be taken for granted that from one cause 

 or another the stories told by each party in a horso 

 case are nearly certain to be contradictory, and 

 although a judge may wish to avoid the responsi- 

 bilily of saying which story is the true one, as a 

 rule it will be better to have horse ca.ses tried by 

 the judge of the co\ii-t and not by a jiuy, or, if it 

 were jiossible, ])y a judge and two a.sse.ssor8 who 

 know somctliing about hoi-scs. A County Court 



