^8 .Scats and Saddles. 



the midship section, or lost by its being just behind the 

 shoulder, whether in or out of contact? The gain is 

 simply this, that in the first case we can exercise imme- 

 diately an absolute control over the horse's hind legs, 

 and make him place them as we please — and these 

 being the propellers, we have entire mastery ; whereas 

 the loss occasioned by the stirrup being far forward 

 consists in our generally coming much too late with 

 our leg, when we have occasion to use it in this way, 

 the horse having swerved right round before we can get 

 at him and compel him to go ahead ; in our having to 

 pull right against the stirrup-leather; and, worst of all, 

 in our being compelled to loosen our whole seat in con- 

 sequence of our thigh-bones refusing to bend. The effect 

 of these two positions of the stirrups and forms of seat on 

 the stability of the latter, when it becomes necessary to 

 stand or rise in the former, we must reserve for a little. 

 There is a notion prevalent that a military seat is a 

 fork-seat; this is simply a popular error that requires 

 refutation. On the other hand, some people will per- 

 sist in sitting on that part of their back which is still, 

 perhaps, called back, instead of on that portion of it 

 which is honored w^ith a supplemental designation. 

 What is a man to sit on? Well, he has two bones 

 in his seat, which we venture, in imitation of German 

 phraseology, to call his "sitting-bones," and a third in 

 rear — that on which umquhile Lord Monboddo built 

 his celebrated theory, since improved on by Danvin, of 

 the human race, having been originally developed from 

 monkeys ; this third bone completes, with the other 

 two, a triangular basis for the human seat on horse- 

 back, and, be it said, a much more efficient one than 

 for the theory in question.* If the angle of the hip- 



* It has escaped the observation of the Darwinians that monkeys 

 on horseback never sit on their tails, which, of course, upsets their 

 whole theory. 



