250 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
ery driver has his own specitic, upon the peculiar and 
wonderful properties of which he will descant with 
much enthusiasm; but the best of them is probably 
not more efficacious than a rag tied about the coronet, 
and kept well moistened with cold water. 
Despite the severity of their occasional labors and 
the hard usage to which their feet are subjected, fire 
horses in Boston last a considerable time. They are 
bought, usually, at the age of five or six years (cost- 
ing about $325), and they remain in service, on the 
average, about seven or eight years. In other cities 
their duration and cost are nearly the same. In Cam- 
bridge, where few of the streets are paved, fire horses 
are said to last from seven to ten years; but in Brook- 
lyn this period is put as low as six years, —about the 
length of time that a car horse endures. 
In Boston there are at least half a dozen veterans 
of ten years’ standing, and some who have served as 
fire horses even longer than that. The old hose-cart 
horse of whom I have spoken already has a record 
of at least ten years’ service. There is another sea- 
soned Houyhnhnm, —a dark chestnut, of the same 
heavy, low-standing shape, who has seen twelve win- 
ters in the business. About five years ago it was 
thought that he ought to have an easier life, and ac- 
cordingly he was transferred to an outlying station, 
where fires seldom occur. But on the occasion of the 
first alarm to which he responded the old fellow bolt- 
ed, and made a complete wreck of the hose-cart by 
dashing it against a stone wall. This was his protest 
at being removed from the house to which he had 
become accustomed, and from the society of his fa- 
miliar friends, human and equine; and so he was put 
