96 THE LONDON HORSE AT HOME 



large establishments is plain. If a horse turns out 

 unfit for the use for which it is bought, it can be trans- 

 ferred to another. If unsuited for a smart carriage, it 

 can be hired out to the doctor, and if troublesome, can 

 be put to hard labour for a season in an omnibus, and 

 thence transferred, after a course of discipline, to the 

 luxurious life of private service. This is an old device ; 

 but hitherto the transfer could not be made without the 

 sale and repurchase of the animal at a loss, until the 

 horseowner increased his stock to a size which made 

 such change of employment possible. One small 

 owner, the possessor of four or five light * vanners,' was 

 wont to boast that he had bought a horse for five 

 pounds and sold it for fifty pounds, a story which he 

 never varied when relating it to the present writer. 

 The animal, purchased at an equine ' rubbish ' sale, was 

 a confirmed bolter. No sooner was it harnessed than it 

 set off at full gallop, a career which generally ended in 

 a smash, and the immediate resale of the culprit. But 

 the new purchaser, far from trying to check this 

 propensity, resolved, as he said, to ' humour him a bit/ 

 and generously * lent him to a fire-engine.' The horse 

 soon found that he was encouraged not only to bolt at 

 starting, but to keep up the pace, and in six months was 

 quite ready either to stand in harness or to start at any 

 speed wished by his driver. Besides the great 'jobbers,' 

 the omnibus companies, the railways, the London 



