188 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



associate an animal wliose appearance alone should con- 

 demn liim — narrow, weedy, and leggy, with scarcely a 

 point in his favour for getting- liimters, and ver}^ possibly 

 fidl of all sorts of defects, natural and otherwise. The 

 fee still is a small one, and so the mischief is done. A 

 man pays 25 shillings where 5 guineas would have been 

 a saving, and the thorough-bred horse gets a bad name, 

 plainly and very palpably, if a customer would only make 

 use of his eyes, from being unfairly represented. Con- 

 sidering the iniinity of good or evil they are capable of 

 producing, it is really a question whether horses should 

 ever be allowed to travel without a licence, the more par- 

 ticularly when we see how few people take the trouble to 

 judge for themselves. It is said that every Englishman 

 is either a judge of a horse or thinks he is -, but one can 

 scarcely credit this, when we find such a number of weeds 

 and cripples year after year earning incomes for their 

 owners. Although nag-breeding may not pay, it is 

 remarkable how many men still continue the unprofitable 



pursuit. 



And now as to the remedv. Tlie notion of encourac'inp,' 



farmers to breed a better sort of horse is by no means a 

 novel one. The offer comes, in the first instance, by way 

 of some recompence for the privilege of riding over their 

 land, or to ensure their good-will for the Hunt. Hence, 

 we have had Farmers' Plates and Hunters' Stakes, 

 neither of which can be said to have thoroughly answered 

 their object. The so-called hunter just " qualified" by 

 showing at the covert-side a few times, and then went 

 back to lead gallops for a Derby favourite, or to vary his 

 performance in the field by winning a Royal Hundred. 

 Tlie Farmers' Purse, given by the gentlemen of the Hunt, 

 has been often enough still further from its original in- 



