OBITUARY. 
119 
success. Upright and honorable in all his dealings, and 
punctual almost to an excess, the name of Peech was heard 
only to be respected; and there are friends innumerable, 
including very many of the noblemen and gentry of York- 
shire and the adjoining counties, who will learn with un- 
feigned regret that they have seen Mr. Peech for the last 
time. He first commenced practice in the Angel yard, from 
which he removed into George Street, and ultimately settled 
in the premises now occupied by Mr. Cartledge, veterinary 
surgeon, and where he remained for upwards of thirty years. 
The distances Mr. Peech rode on horseback are something 
fabulous. He frequently would travel in such manner ninety 
or a hundred miles per day, leaving as early as two o’clock in 
the morning, and breakfasting forty and fifty miles from 
home. There is little doubt, in the minds of those who 
knew him best, that he rode more miles than any other man in 
England. An instance of his wide spread celebrity occurred 
on an occasion of his being in the neighbourhood of York. 
A post-boy returning to an hotel yard with his horses, after 
a journey of some forty miles, Mr. Peech said to him, “ How 
far have you ridden to-day? I suppose you often ride 
great distances. Did you ever calculate how many miles 
you rode in a year? ” “No, sir,” says the post-boy, “I 
hardly could do that ; but there is a chap they call Peech of 
Sheffield who beats us all.” He invariably rode on horse- 
back, where, indeed, he was better known than in any other 
position ; but in the early part of his career he drove a light 
“sulky,” which being blown over by the force of the wind 
on one of the neighbouring moors, he never again got into a 
vehicle of the kind, nor, until the last few years of his life, 
did he possess a carriage of any description. The hacks 
he rode were usually thorough-bred, which his light weight 
allowed of his doing, and they, with the invariable neatness 
of his horse accoutrements, w^ere the admiration of many. 
Some of his horses were at one time almost as w 7 ell known 
as himself, and to his great humanity be it told that with 
these valuable servants he never parted. In his service they 
earned and obtained an honorable grave. “ Queen Mab,” 
“ Garrick,” a hog-maned horse, and “ Dulcinea,” w 7 ere his 
chief celebrities. The former he calculated he rode one 
hundred and ten thousand miles in twelve years ; and the 
estimation of his having ridden on horseback on an average 
fifty miles per day, or three hundred and fifty miles a week, 
for forty successive years will be admitted, by all who knew 
the extent of his practice, not to be an exaggeration. Mr. 
Peech was full of w it and anecdote, and which the incidents 
