25() INDIA-RUBBER CONSCIENCES. 



body as ever disgraced humanity: but when he does 

 so, it is in nineteen cases out of twenty his OAvn fault, 

 arising either from the vain hope of getting a bargain, 

 or from conceit in fancying himself a proficient in 

 matters that (he finds to his cost) he really knows 

 little or nothing about. 



If any one concludes, from what I have at any time 

 written on the subject, that I either consider or have 

 intended to represent horse-dealers as men in whom 

 we may place perfect confidence, the fault has been 

 in my mode of expressing myself, not in my intention. 

 I consider them in no such hght. Confidence to a 

 certain degree may be reposed in certain dealers in 

 horses ; so it may in certain dealers in wine, and in 

 certain (and that certain comprises a very, very few) 

 dealers in pictures : but if a man who is not a judge 

 will go to either and make his own purchases, he 

 will to a certainty be more or less taken in ; that is, 

 he will not get the best value for his money given 

 him. If first-rate men in their way, they will not 

 venture to give you an absolutely unsound or decidedly 

 vicious horse in face of their warranty to the contrary ; 

 decidedly pricked wine for sound ; or a kno^vn copy 

 for a genuine Claude, Titian, or Domenichino ; but 

 you will be all but certain to get as inferior an ar- 

 ticle of these several commodities as their risk of 

 character will permit them to put into your hands 

 at the price given. They are tradesmen: their 

 object is to make money; and while they do not 

 do anything absolutely dishonest, their consciences 

 and ideas are like those of many attorneys, who con- 

 sider nothing dishonourable that is not contrary to 

 law. 



I have said that I believed a respectable horse- 



