BROOD-MARES OF FORMER YEARS 75 



alongside of one and as suddenly disappear, and I 

 shall never forget it. Such a thing could not occur 

 nowadays, for all the fun has been knocked out of the 

 Irish character, and suspicion, even of his best friends, 

 now marks the Irishman, So much for the degrading 

 influence of the ' almighty dollar ' and the wily sharpers 

 who have for years past been feathering their nests with 

 other people's money, and who have brought about 

 the degradation and ruin which at present exists 

 amongst all classes of Irishmen, the highest as well as 

 the lowest. Not only is the national sport of hunting 

 itself seriously interfered with, but the farmers in con- 

 sequence have lost the market for their hay and oats, 

 which represents the loss of enormous profit to them ; 

 and the man who in those days possessed a good 

 brood-mare of the right sort was able to make a real 

 good thing out of her produce, especially with such 

 sires as Navarino and Birdcatcher, etc., to put her to. 

 1 have often in former years seen such mares with 

 colts at their heels which could be purchased for 

 a very small sum — a mere song ; and worth 

 any amount of money nowadays. Alas ! the mares 

 have now been nearly all parted with, and they are 

 indeed but very rarely to be met with at the present 

 time. 



My reference again to the subject of brood-mares 

 recalls to my memory the performance of one which 

 belonged to a friend of mine, Mr. Joseph Moran, of 

 Raistown, County Meath. He had bought her at 

 a fair for ^15, and she produced many first-class 

 colts, all of them up to weight, being compact, short, 

 flat-legged horses, which were worth going a long way 

 to see. A Navarino mare every inch ot her, and my 



