HORSE-SELLING ADVERTISEMENTS. 223 



being the colour, and whether horse or mare, as 

 ' a brown horse,' ' a chestnut mare,' etc. 



All the numerous and glowing descriptions to 

 be found in the newspapers at this time of horses for 

 sale by private contract would have been thrown 

 away entirely upon the coach-proprietor, as in the 

 first place he would be too good a judge, and too 

 much accustomed to have a great number of horses 

 constantly passing through his hands, to be in any 

 way influenced by them ; and secondly, if the 

 descriptions were true to the letter, the animal would 

 be parted with only at too high a figure to suit 

 the coach-proprietor. 



From what I have heard there is frequently a great 

 mystery about horses advertised to be sold privately 

 somewhere down in an obscure mews, the intending 

 purchaser having to wait while the coachman is 

 fetched from the ' public ' round the corner. 



As an instance of the mode in which persons having 

 a horse of dubious character to dispose of would 

 resort to some coach-proprietor in the hope of his 

 becoming a purchaser, I give the following, related 

 by a man who was himself a coach-proprietor, as well 

 as a coachman on the Oxford road. He says : 



' My employer, knowing that Oxford was a place 

 where harness-horses were sometimes to be picked up 

 on more reasonable terms than in London, had com- 



