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the coachman back to London, because he could'nt 

 drive them quietly with one, and he thought it looked 

 so odd to drive them without. Every person, it is 

 said, has his peculiar qualifications, and I will back an 

 English coachman, especially a Londoner, to fill a 

 horse's pasterns quicker than any other native of this 

 planet ; and I will back his credulous master for the 

 most simple gaze of amazement when coachee, in re- 

 ply to any question about these pasterns, runs his 

 hand down them, and answers : — " Ah ! there's not 

 much the matter there." " Where ignorance is. bliss 

 'tis folly to be wise." 



There may have existed a class of horses in 

 England some sixty years ago, at the time that 

 thorough-bred sires of six or seven years old, grown 

 to their full strength and having decently clean legs, 

 were procurable to breed from, that would have stood 

 a great deal of incessant work. There are not five 

 per cent, that will stand it now. Two seasons may 

 sometimes be got over, but if the stumps were rickety 

 in both the parents, perhaps not one. Had the sire 

 and dam been sought out and inspected before the 

 slave was decided on, it would have been easy to de- 

 tect any faults he might have inherited, and one could 

 then have judged with some little certainty whether 

 they lay in his parentage, or in his breaking in ; or 



