564 
PUNCHING OFF SPAVIN. 
Following this, the Marquis of Dalhousie’s farm manager, 
Mr. Main, purchased a very fine looking cart-horse at a sale 
of horses belonging to the Earl of Zetland. No doubt, the 
horse looked well ; but Mr. Main was no judge of horses. 
He had been bred in the army, I think in the regiment of the 
late Earl of Dalhousie, where he had got promoted to full 
sergeant ; Mrs. Main had been nurse to the present marquis, 
and Mr. Main had been brought home with a pension, to 
attend on the late Earl in his dotage. After his death, he 
w r as retained keeping the castle when the family did not live 
in it, and since has had the looking after the form, little 
or none of which is now' in cultivation, but is grazed by 
sheep, & c. Mr. Main, like most of his kind, though totally 
ignorant of the proper management of horses, sheep, or 
farms, can no doubt look assuming airs which would make a 
stranger think the Marquis was his footman, when they are 
both seen together. He applies martial law to all his sub- 
ordinates with a rigor showing no fear of control, as he has 
no superior officer at hand ; and as I mean to show, he 
applies the same rule to the beasts. In buying this horse at 
Mr. Sairg’s bazaar, in Edinburgh, he knew, no doubt, 
a horse from a cow, by the difference of tail and the absence 
of horns, but he had no knowledge of legs, or lameness, or 
spavin, or sales. Some person told him, after the animal 
had been bought, that he was lame ; so he went to the Earl of 
Zetland’s manager to have him warranted ; but, oh ! that was 
another story, he was a better judge, and did not warrant 
horses after they were sold. The horse was brought home, 
no doubt, lame enough. £45 had been paid for him ; and I 
was sent for to examine him, as I had been always employed 
in attendance and purchasing horses for the Marquis. He 
was very bad of spavin, and w ith that affection worth about 
£15. He had to be fired in both hind legs. After a con- 
siderable time he got quite sound, and remained so, working 
on the roads for at least six months, w r hen he got a strain of 
the flexor tendons of the off hind leg, and had been worked some 
time w ith that when I was called to see him. I ordered poultice 
and rest; this he got from one Saturday till Monday, andwas put 
to work. A few days after, I called to see him, and urged that 
he should get rest : but no ! I was told 1 ') — n him ! I will 
make him work. I did not see him for about a month, when, 
meeting his driver going to work, he asked me wdiat I thought 
of him : he was “ so lame he could scarcely put his foot to the 
ground.” Like a fool, I said w hat I thought, viz. that “ it would 
have been a disgrace to have seen a horse so lame going in' 
the cart of a Gilmerton coal-carter — far more so in seeing 
