274 ‘ PRACTICABLE REFORMS. 
I know the theory set forth is, that unless boys learn to and 
do ride at three stone or thereabouts, they will never be able 
to do so at heavier weights. A more fallacious idea I think I 
never heard uttered, or one more likely wholly to stop the 
progress the theory professedly seeks toadvance. Admit for 
argument’s sake that it is necessary for boys to commence 
their tuition at an age so very early ; then, let them ride 
at two stone, or any other weight, until practice has given 
them something beyond the rudiments of a business they are 
supposed to be thoroughly well acquainted with, if not perfect 
in. It is not the learning at an early age that I complain of 
in these boys, but the assumption of duties they are utterly 
incapable of performing, and the coming forward to ride in 
public, much as John Gilpin did, as regards the amusement 
afforded to onlookers ; although unfortunately it is the reverse 
of diversion to the luckless owner and backers of the horse. 
Everything I see connected with the light weights, con- 
vinces me more and more of the absolute necessity of em- 
ploying men instead of boys; and whilst on this important 
subject I cannot refrain from expressing my views copiously, 
even at the risk of being thought tedious. Can any one 
seriously believe that, of two boys weighing three stone 
apiece and in other respects equal, the one after a year's 
tuition as a jockey, shall, in after life, be better than the other 
who has received four or five years extra tuition in his art 
before appearing in public? Yet this is what some people 
would have. By the same parity of reasoning they might 
assert of two students equally gifted, that the one leaving 
college after a year’s tuition, will be equal in learning to the 
other who has continued his course of study with unremitting 
labour for four or five years longer. If this be the logic 
brought forward in support of retaining the services of mcre 
