170 
THE HORSE MAKER. 
quality that a horse should have, with the exception of 
docility, the want of which nullified all the rest. Though 
valued at between fifty and sixty guineas, from his fine pro- 
portions and strength of limb, he was sold, after a score of 
grooms had tried their skill upon him in vain, for three 
sovereigns to a member of this fraternity, who, a fortnight 
afterwards, exhibited him in harness drawing near two tons 
with perfect ease and willingness, though he had not here- 
tofore in any other hands submitted to become of any use 
whatever. His vanquisher declared that he had taken the 
devil out of him by driving him from Vauxhall to Bristol in 
one day, allowing him one day’s rest, and then back again on 
the third day. Be this as it may, the horse was purchased 
at a high price for her Majesty’s service, and we saw him 
frequently afterwards performing the hardest work with per- 
fect quietness and docility. 
This class of deceivers seldom succeed in their attempts to 
get on ; they are, for the most part, men who, seduced by the 
love of the saddle and whip, have deserted the occupations to 
which they were brought up, and have sought, without 
capital, to participate in the profits of the regular dealer in 
horses. Not a few of them are the proprietors of rickety 
cabs or hackney coaches, which, like the beasts that draw 
them, have been long ago fairly worn out in the service of the 
public. It is not unusual to encounter an equipage which, 
including horse, harness, and vehicle, would be a sorry pur- 
chase at five pounds. The hungry proprietor, seated on the 
box, crawls about the streets in the dusk of the evening in 
hopes of picking up another, and still another, last fare ; he is 
afraid to halt at the regular “ stand,” lest his poor staggering 
brute should be too stiff to move off in case of a sudden call. 
The scoundrel has platted an iron wire into the thin end of 
his w r hip-lash, well knowing that nothing short of actual tor- 
ture will goad the wretched jade he drives into anything faster 
than a walking pace. One is often tempted, at such a spec- 
tacle, to pray for a collision with some racing van or omnibus, 
which shall shake the remaining life out of the poor brute, 
and thus release him from the tyranny of his master, pu- 
nishing the biped at the same moment for his dastardly 
inhumanity . — Curiosities of London Life . 
