124 OPINIONS ON SAFETY VAEY. 



that such is the case. Let us now turn our attention 

 to that most difficult animal to get, a Hack. There 

 is no great difficulty in getting carried well to hounds ; 

 and indeed, provided a horse has speed, we may 

 there screw anything along, for few horses will fall 

 in a fast pace, and, however he may be disposed to 

 do so, we don't give him time enough for it. If a 

 man has nerve, I will guarantee his neck to the kill. 

 Returning home, he must take care of himself; but 

 defend me from an unsafe goer as a hack. I am not 

 particularly nervous, and if I wanted to do seven 

 miles in twenty minutes even on the road, particu- 

 larly if with the excitement of going to meet hounds, 

 should not be very nice what I got upon ; for, pro- 

 vided they are good enough, they will go safe enough 

 at that pace ; but to trot an unsafe hack seven miles 

 an hour along a road is to me awful : I would at all 

 times on a fair horse compound to take half a dozen 

 gates and a couple of good brooks to avoid such a 

 seven miles ride. I constantly see people in the neigh- 

 bourhood of London riding quite contentedly along 

 on road-horses that would frighten me to death. 

 Rowland's hard pomatum or his best bandoline would 

 not prevent my hair standing on end every ten steps. 

 People may say, how is it that they do not come 

 doAvn ? They do come down ; and then the owner 

 attributes their doing so to treading on a stone, or 

 some other adventitious circumstance ; fancies fifty 

 things as an excuse for his favourite cob ; in short, 

 fixncies everything but the fall, or that he will fall 

 again. He will though. Such men mil say, their 

 horse had always before carried them safely: they 

 are, however, in a trifling error here : the fact is, the 

 brute had never for a minute carried them safely: 



