4 CONFESSIONS OF A HOKSE DEALEB. 



As a duty I owe to my readers, I shall expose the 

 various systems and instances of horse coping, which are 

 continually ^coming 'under my notice, and doubt not 

 that, while some may take a salutary lesson from the 

 instances of swindling the novice in horse buying, which 

 I shall describe in the ensuing chapters, others will be 

 interested, if not amused, at the ingenious manner in 

 which the various victims have been duped. It is strange 

 that in the face of repeated warnings from the press and 

 other sources, that people who are conscious that they are 

 totally ignorant of a horse's nature, infirmities, or faults, 

 will rely solely on the representations of a class of men 

 who are perfect strangers to them, and who have neither 

 place of business, license to deal in horses, nor reference 

 to give as to respectability. 



I am in a position to relate an instance which has 

 very recently occurred in London, whereby a gentleman 

 residing in the suburbs has been cheated out of no less 

 a sum than one hundred and fifty guineas, by an organ- 

 ised gang of horse-chaunters. This class are much more 

 dangerous than the genuine coper, who sells a low-priced 

 hack at a country fair, for a sound horse, knowing him 

 to be unsound, because they are much better educated, 

 and consequently enabled to fly at higher game. The 

 professional horse-chaunter is for the most part a broken- 

 down gentleman, living in furnished lodgings, which, 

 together with his name, he is constantly changing. On 

 a stranger's first introduction to him, he presents a 

 neatly engraved address card, sometimes bearing a crest, 



