CONDITION. 201 



master and horse, one in body; both, in spirits, 

 flat, stale, and unprofitable." 



Though I will not anticipate so exaggerated 

 and funeste a result of any of my readers' pur- 

 chases, I can assure him that such, in a mitigated 

 way, is often the change of a fat horse to a thin 

 one : unless the purchaser has an eye to see, and 

 a hand to feel, what such an animal will be when 

 his real form becomes developed ; and that is no 

 easy matter to decide on. 



I by no means advise the rejection of a fat 

 horse because he is so. If time can be given to 

 get him fit to work ; but if this cannot be af- 

 forded, and the buyer wants one to go to imme- 

 diate use, be he promising or not, he will find 

 by experience that my advice is good, when I say, 

 reject him at any price ; cheap he cannot eventu- 

 ally be : for if you work him in such a state, the 

 chances are he will be even worse than I have 

 above figuratively described ; for those chances 

 are greatly in favour of his shortly being a dead 

 one. 



Let us now look to purchasing or rejecting a 

 horse out of condition from the reverse cause — 

 poverty. There are but few cases in which I 

 would, as I did in the one of the fat horse, advise 

 the absolute rejection of the poor one. The only 

 circumstances where I should unequivocally ad- 

 vise this would be, if it w^as ascertained that a 



