62 AMERICAX STABLE GUIDE. 



from whence the sickness came. When the mischief is 

 done, all sorts of excuses are made ; •' no one to blame;" the 

 head man declares himself entirely ignorant of the bring- 

 ing of such a horse to the stable, and by way of sympathy 

 for the loss, a new horse is at once offered that would just 

 suit instead of the one lost. The law of supply and 

 demand in the livery stable is well understood. We 

 may be wrong, but have often said that it is not the desire 

 of the keeper of a livery, sale, or exchange stable, that the 

 horse of a gentleman of means (having use and a taste for 

 horses) should live and get over whatever disease the 

 animal may have had, as an opening is thus made for a 

 sale which could not be effected had it lived and got 

 entirely well again. There are more horses destroyed 

 from want of care and good management in the livery, sale, 

 or exchange stables of Philadelphia, than from all other 

 places and stables combined, but from what cause, we 

 would have others inquire. The great expense of horse 

 feed ; the over-crowded condition of the place ; bad ventila- 

 tion, light and drainage ; lazy, indolent, drunken, low-priced 

 men kept for grooms, in some of these stables, are sufficient 

 to create disease among horses. At livery, almost all the 

 pleasure-horses leave the stable at one or near the same 

 time and return about the same — thus throwing too many 

 warm and exhausted horses upon the too few and inex- 

 perienced hands. Some are left to cool in the open air, or 

 perhaps in a draught — a chill is produced, lung fever sets 

 in, and death or a thick-winded horse is the consequence. 



