MISCELLANEA. 
117 
THE LAST NEW HORSE-EAIR SWINDLE. 
The fairs in this part of the country (Yorkshire) have for 
years past been infested by an organized gang of swindling 
horse-dealers, whose nefarious dealings entitle them to be styled 
the Bedouins of the horse-fair, though they are better known 
as the “ Leeds gang/ 5 The hereditary descendants, probably, 
of the sharpers who swindled the Vicar of Wakefield’s son 
Moses out of his father’s horse-of-all-w 7 ork, they have invented 
many new devices since Oliver Goldsmith honoured them 
with the notice ofhis pen. A good-looking, glandered horse 
will keep the brotherhood of knaves quite in clover for a long 
succession of fairs, if the wretched beast can be kept on his legs 
so long a time. At every mart for equine quadrupeds there 
are buyers who cannot forego the purchase of such a horse 
apparently worth thirty or forty pounds, when they see him 
offered for less than half the money ; and generally when 
such a sale has been effected by certain of the gang of screw- 
dealers, others in league with them succeed in repurchasing 
the steed for fewer shillings than just before he had been 
sold for pounds, the new purchaser generally being unwilling 
to brook the exposure of his simplicity, and preferring to take 
a few shillings for a worthless animal rather than have him 
destroyed. In this w 7 ise the game is kept alive. This specific 
fraud we have found occasion to expose after every Sheffield 
fair for years past, and perhaps it does not work quite so well 
as formerly. Hence w 7 e have now to exhibit a new dodge 
practised by our old acquaintances the Bedouins. Here is a 
sample of the new 7 pattern. A simple, honest countryman 
came to our fair last Tuesday to buy a horse, and, lackaday ! 
he fell among thieves, who sold him one. It seemed a per- 
fectly correct transaction ; and thus far so it w as, in fact. 
The beast w 7 as not so u cheap” as to excite suspicion, and 
the purchaser w?as satisfied he w 7 asn’t glandered at any rate. 
But he had not been many minutes in possession of his new 7 
master before certain of the Leeds worthies went to him, and, 
declaring that the horse w r as glandered, offered to repurchase 
him for half-a-crow 7 n ! One of the rascals, affecting liberality, 
offered the advanced sum of six shillings. The new pur- 
chaser w 7 as unwilling to believe that the horse was really 
affected by the loathsome and infectious malady imputed to 
him ; so one of the would-be purchasers, when the owner’s 
back was turned, slipped into the stable where the tabooed 
xxx. 16 
