RIDING RECOLLECTIONS 



Its very neck was so constructed with hinges that, 

 on pulHng at the bridle, it gave you its head 

 without changing the direction of its body, exactly 

 like an unbroken colt as yet intractable to the bit. 

 At a word from the inventor, spoken in his own 

 language to his assistants below, this artificial 

 charger committed every kind of wickedness that 

 could be devised by a fiend in equine shape. It 

 reared straight on end ; it lunged forward with its 

 nose between its fore feet, and its tail elevated to 

 a perpendicular, awkward and ungainly as that of 

 a swan in reverse. It lay down on its side ; it 

 rose to its legs with a bounce, and finally, if the 

 rider's strength and dexterity enabled him still to 

 remain in the saddle, it wheeled round and round 

 with a velocity that could not fail at last to shoot 

 him out of his seat on to the floor, humanely 

 spread with mattresses, in anticipation of this 

 inevitable catastrophe. It is needless to say how 

 such an exhibition drew, with so horse-loving a 

 public as our own. No gentleman who fancied he 

 could "ride a bit" was satisfied till he had taken 

 his shillino-'s worth and the mechanical horse had 

 put him on his back. But for the mattresses, 

 Piccadilly could have counted more broken collar- 

 bones than ever did Leicestershire in the blindest 

 and deepest of its Novembers. Rough-riders 

 from the Life-Guards, Blues, Artillery, and half 

 the cavalry regiments In the service, came to try 



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