112 Bits and Bittum 



^5 



secret certain processes for the benefit of the initiated, 

 and to the exclusion of the general public. 



There can be, perhaps, no very serious objection to 

 this in general, the great desideratum being that the 

 workman should know how to do his work properly, 

 not suffering himself to be misled by the kind of mys- 

 tical jargon applied to it ; but there are cases in which 

 it does an infinity of mischief, and tends to the propa- 

 gation of serious errors. To give a practical illustra- 

 tion : of the thousands that ride and drive horses in 

 this country, but very few have acquired the art other- 

 wise than by self-teaching — what is called practice ; and 

 of the nearly equally great number who are entrusted 

 with the care and management of these animals, pre- 

 cisely the same may be said. What shall w^e say of 

 the somewhat numerous class of individuals that under- 

 take to "break in" horses, as it is called, except that 

 they distinguish themselves generally by an abundance 

 of courage and determination — very necessary qualifica- 

 tions they are, too — and an equally great lack of any- 

 thing like rational principle to guide them in the exer- 

 cise of what they have converted into a handicraft. 

 There Is a fourth class, not numerous indeed, but very 

 important in their way : those artisans who spend all 

 their lives in the forge or workshop have seldom if 

 ever any even the slightest knowledge of horses, and 

 still are entrusted with the fabrication of those instru- 

 ments, too frequently of torture, vs^hich we apply to 

 almost the most sensitive part of the animal's body, his 

 mouth. 



Now there is scarcely any one expression so common 

 among riders, drivers, grooms and horse-breakers as 

 that a horse*s mouth is hard or soft; and when one 

 comes to inquire into the best mode of attaining the 

 last-named quality, which is, of course, that most de- 

 sired, we find that the exceedingly sensitive gums of 



