ON HORSE-BREEDING. 19 



beautiful one, has yet served more than any 

 other to display the uglier side of human 

 nature, and affords constant opportunities for 

 the exercise of some of the basest chicanery 

 of which the mind of man is capable — that 

 its object is the improvement of the breed 

 of horses ? We believe this to have been 

 the honest desire of those who introduced 

 and first practised the sport of horse-racing 

 in this country ; but that any such com- 

 mendable motive animates and inspires any 

 considerable proportion of those now engaged 

 in it, and particularly the ignoble army of 

 welshers, gulls, loafers, touts, and tipsters 

 which frequents almost every racecourse in 

 the kingdom, is manifestly incredible. Yet 

 is the claim that such has been the effect 

 of the introduction of horse-racing in these 

 islands by no means an idle one, for it is 

 entirely to the importation of stock fit for 

 this purpose that we owe the superiority in 

 all kinds of light horses, for which we have 



