84 CONFESSIONS OF A HOUSE DEAJLEB. 



" jockied" to an unheard-of extent in the great " horse 

 auction swindle" at Manchester; even a 'cute dealer 

 from the West-end of London came down and bought 

 two of these cripples, for which he gave 110, one of 

 which was lame in the shoulder, and the other subject 

 to staggers, and died m ihe stall soon after he arrived in 

 London. 



A cold, damp November fog ushered in the day of 

 sale. The auctioneer mounted his rostrum at eleven 

 o'clock, and made a sort of speech to the numerous and 

 respectable assemblage. I could not hear all he said, 

 but he tried to look as pompous as possible, and com- 

 menced with something about being commissioned by 

 the agent of an Irish peer, well-known on the turf, 

 whose racing-stud had recently been sold at Tattersall's, 

 and who was now reluctantly compelled, by misfortune, 

 and a chain of adverse circumstances, which he could 

 not explain, to offer his stud of splendid hunters and 

 hacks for sale. He was instructed by the agent to say 

 that the horses were all sound, with the exception of a 

 bay mare, which had caught a little "sea cough" in 

 transitu across the Channel ; in fact, the unsound and 

 " amiss" horses had been sold or turned out in Ireland, 

 the expense being too great to bring them over at the 

 risk of not being able to sell them. 



To these preliminary remarks the auctioneer added 

 that the horses would be sold to the highest bidder, 

 who must pay for them at the fall of the hammer, as 

 the agent had to be in Ireland on the following day, 



