ON THE HORSES OF ENGLAND. 
97 
and are as readily obtained ; machiners may be a shade dearer than 
they were before omnibusses were in fashion, but still there is no 
great inconvenience experienced in their market. 
But go into the stables of our metropolitan dealers, and you will 
find them, one and all, complain that the sort of horse I am parti- 
cularly alluding to is not to be bought, offer what money you may; 
and it is evident they are not to be met with in the metropolis. 
Twenty years ago, a purchaser would have had no difficulty, when 
looking into the stables of Messrs. Anderson, Dyson, Elmore, Til- 
bury, She ward, and others, of finding, at least, some fifty two- 
hundred-guinea horses for his inspection. He may now look in 
vain for a tenth of that number, and still be disappointed : it being 
but too true that the superior riding horse, or valuable hunter, has 
become almost a rara-avis, as compared with former days. 
It must ever be a source of national pride, as well as profit, to 
possess a superior breed of horses; yet, unless some means be 
devised, and that shortly, and carried out successfully, we shall 
not for long be enabled to maintain the triumphant name Great 
Britain has ever indisputably held above all other nations for its 
breed of superior horses. That such a want of good horses de- 
pends but upon temporary causes there can be no doubt. Our 
pastures are not diminished either in extent or quality ; forage has 
not been so dear, although now at a high price, as at a period when 
I recollect to have seen stables full of superior horses in London ; 
therefore I hope it may be reasonably inferred that, possessing the 
same capabilities we ever did, it requires but the development of 
some well-directed energies again to furnish these realms with the 
requisite supply of superior horses. 
The distribution of thorough-bred stallions throughout our pro- 
vinces has done much for the advancement of the breed of horses 
generally throughout the kingdom. I recollect my late father re- 
marking, in a stable of thirty-two coach horses at the Royal Mews, 
not many years since, that when he was in the habit of buying 
carriage horses of Spenser, in Oxford-street, some five-and-thirty 
years ago, there was more hair on the legs of one horse of that 
day than was to be seen in our whole stable of thirty-two horses : 
so coarse were they, as compared with the horses he was then 
looking at. 
There is no lack of covering stallions, of every denomination, 
throughout the country ; but, on the contrary, I believe there are 
more to be met with everywhere now than can find employment ; 
and so long as the turf possesses its present force, there need be 
no apprehension of a scarcity in the supply of the best of stallions. 
In elucidation of the fact, that England possesses peculiar capa- 
bilities for breeding and improving the breed of horses, I may 
