SWAPPING HORSES AND HORSE JOCKEY TRICKS. 293 



and as the people of Boston would have no use for a mare in 

 foal, he had thought his best chance of securing a customer lay 

 among the farmers, who were better situated to raise a fine 

 Yermont-bred colt than any other customer whom he might be 

 able to strike. Consequently, he considered his best plan to 

 he in taking her over to the Brighton Cattle Market on 

 market day when many farmers and live-stock dealers from 

 all over that section of the country would be there, and have 

 her sold at auction to the highest bidder for cash. The sale, 

 being a public one, would leave no ground for complaint from 

 the owner that he had not acted honestly in the transaction. 

 Honesty and a good name was what this young man claimed 

 to possess and he could not well afford to do anything disrepu- 

 table whereby the public faith in him might be shaken. 



Well, the final result of this whole transaction was that he 

 sold that $200 or $300 mare for a regular low-down stealing 

 price, for a price, as the honest auctioneer remarked at the 

 time, that one could much better afford to pay than to run 

 the risk incident upon stealing her, — and /was the lucky (?) 

 purchaser. Only think of it ! I had procured a $200 Vermont 

 Morgan mare (some of the party claimed her to be worth 

 $300), with foal by old Daniel Lambert himself, for about one- 

 quarter of her actual value. 



" Very well," I soliloquized, " this bargain will offset several 

 poor trades made by being duped and lied to by regular horse- 

 jockeys, with whom I had really no business to deal." 



On taking the mare home to my stable, I told my two 

 small boys who were in the barn at the time, that I would 

 show them a beautiful kinkly tail, as it had been done up so 

 long it must necessarily be kinkled and curled to a very high 

 degree, and I at once proceeded to untie it. I cut and took off 

 string after string, also a lot of burlap, and finally the tail it- 

 self came off also ; i. e. the false tail, leaving a stub some six or 

 eight inches in length — long enough to "tie to," however. 



Never, perhaps, in any after development of a horse trade 

 have I received so great a shock as when I had cut the last 



