NOT SO BLACK AS HIS NEIGHBOURS. 345 



Reader, do you see that elderly person in a plain 

 frock-coat, with a pair of shoes, or boots, whose soles 

 would create wonder even with a Folkstone fisher- 

 man? That is Mr. Henry Osborn — in the vocabulary 

 of his old customers, and many very old customers he 

 has, " Harry Osborn" — by whom, if your appearance 

 and address proclaim you a gentleman, I will answer 

 for it you will be received with the deference due to 

 your rank in life; or if they denote your being merely 

 a respectable man, you will be treated with the atten- 

 tion and civility due to a customer. — {Mem. no 

 light blue satin cravats worn ; no champagne talked 

 about, though a bottle might be routed out on occa- 

 sion.) — Osborn does not call himself a gentleman; 

 but, I tell you what, he will very soon judge whether 

 his customer is one or not. 



I think I am justified in calling this the first com- 

 mission stable in England, for two reasons — I believe 

 Osborn was the first who devoted himself exclusively 

 to this branch of the horse trade, and that he has in 

 this way sold more horses than any other man in 

 existence. I am not going to write a panegyric on 

 Mr. Osborn : but so far as I know of him — and I 

 knew him, and he sold horses for me, and to me, when 

 I was a mere boy — I can only say, were I in London, 

 and wanted a horse, to him I should go ; and I be- 

 lieve, greatly to his credit be it said, the greater part 

 of his old customers who have left him have left the 

 world also. 



Having shown my reader a Repository where I 

 consider the business is carried on as fairly as the 

 nature of that business will allow — for, in road 

 phrase, a little '■'■shouldering'" will creep into the best 

 regulated Repositories — I will endeavour to show 



