334 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



bank, or into a ditch, although neither can be very 

 pleasant. 



The following account of a meet of the Coaching 

 Club appeared in the Carriage-Builders and Harness- 

 Makers Gazette, and in my opinion is likely to be more 

 interesting than the gossiping remarks of a sporting 

 correspondent, whose notices of the coaches, horses,, 

 and their drivers, are apt to become somewhat mono- 

 tonous. In many cases, at the meets of these clubs 

 there are a number of carriages present, the occupants 

 of which have come to see the coaches ; the horses 

 in these carriages are oftentimes immeasurably superior 

 to those in the coaches, and are better harnessed, and 

 altogether better turned out ; but the fact of any 

 horse fisfurinof as a coach-horse on such occasions, 

 procures him a meed of praise of which he is thoroughly 

 undeserving, and when probably, were he in a hansom 

 cab, he would feel far more comfortable, and be far 

 more in accordance with his surroundings. 



When going about London, and seeing such a vast 

 number of horses, I am constantly thinking that if one 

 only knew and understood the character and disposition 

 of many good-looking horses one sees employed in 

 menial occupations, what a field for conjecture would 

 be opened to one's mental vision ! Human beings 

 possessed of nobility of mind, wonderful powers of 

 endurance, extraordinary perseverance, and great 

 application, combined with cleverness, generally con- 

 trive to better their position in life ; in fact, there is no 

 withstanding a man who is determined to get on in 

 the world, and who has the necessary qualifications 

 for doing so ; but with a horse it is different. If, owing 

 to some accident of fate, or some obscurity as to his 

 antecedents, or if he has all his life lived in this world 

 unnoticed by an appreciative human eye, it is very 



