26 



'buyers have materially raised the standard 

 of their requirements. 



Mr. J. East, of the well-known firm of 

 Phillips & East, in giving evidence before 

 the Lords' Commission on Horses in 1873, 

 said of the French agents : " They buy the 

 very best and they get mares ; you cannot 

 get them to buy a bad mare." They did not 

 confine their purchases to any particular 

 breed of mares : roomy hunting mares and 

 mares of that class were eagerly purchased 

 to cross with Hackney sires. 



As with the mares so with the stallions. 

 All the experts examined before that Com- 

 mission agreed that the foreign buyers out-bid 

 the English for animals of good class, sparing 

 neither pains nor money to secure them. 



The late Mr. H. R. Phillips informed the 

 Commission that his firm sent " from thirty 

 to forty every year of those roadster stallions 

 to France and Italy and different countries. 

 They sent as many as they could procure." 

 When asked how the number of Hackney 

 stallions reported at that date compared 

 with the number reported ten or fifteen 

 years previously (say about the year 1S58), 

 Mr. Phillips stated that " The number has 

 not increased because they (the foreigners) 

 have always taken as many as they could 

 get." 



