REVIEW. 
79 
Passing over the chapters on u Stable Discipline,” “ Train- 
ing at Two Years old,” “ First, Second, and Final Prepara- 
tions ” for work ; “ Sweating,” “ Trials,” “ Management of 
the Legs and Feet,” ts Shoeing,” “ Bandages and Boots,” 
cc Clothing,” “ Physic,” and ee Travelling,” as being of interest 
mainly to the trainer, or gentleman training his own horse, 
we come to chapter xix,— “ Clipping and Singeing,” in one 
of which we shall find our author dipping a little bit into 
anatomy and physiology. There can be no doubt that 
clipping or singeing horses has been productive of advan- 
tages both to them and their riders ; at the same time, it is 
one that saves the colt many a strapping, while it has a 
tendency to render grooms slack at their work. Before 
clipping or singeing was introduced, horses, particularly when 
they had good coats, came out of well-conducted stables 
nearly as fine and as well up to the mark as they do at 
the present day ; though there was in many studs a black 
sheep — a horse with, naturally, a long woolly coat, a coat 
which all the strapping in the world would not turn into the 
fine or silken hue denotive of condition. As to the difference 
between clipping and singeing a horse, Cecil has some re- 
marks which we may notice, not more for their value than 
for their originality. Observing that race-horses are not 
subjected to any clipping or singeing, by reason of their 
“ services not being required at the season of the year when 
it becomes necessary, namely, during the four months of 
mid-winter,” he adds, in another place, “ and I am quite pre- 
pared to recommend that process (singeing) in preference to 
clipping, from practical experience of the advantages derived 
from it by all hunters, hacks and steeple-chase horses.’’ 
“ After having been singed, they do not experience that 
degree of chilliness, evident by their appearance when ex- 
posed in cold and windy weather, which they do when 
clipped, although they can be singed closer than they can 
be clipped ; in fact, the singeing may be regulated to any 
degree that may be considered desirable. 
“ I imagine this distinction may be attributed to the fact 
that the process of singeing has the effect of closing or, as it 
were, sealing up the outer extremity of each hair , which, 
being a hollow tube, when merely cut with the scissors, is 
