338 
DOCUMENTS ON THE TRADE IN HORSES. 
up and sold at ages varying from three to five years. Taking the 
greatest loss at 8000 annually, Denmark is capable of giving up, 
for the purposes of commerce, from 18,000 to 20,000 horses. 
Persons commissioned to purchase remounts for the army in 
Denmark, and dealers exploring the country in search of horses, 
are in the habit of having their object announced in the churches 
after or before divine service ; also of having bills posted in the 
different public-houses and other frequented places ; which notices 
no sooner get abroad, than the country people from all around 
crowd to the appointed place with multitudes of horses, numbers 
of which, as in all other countries, prove of very inferior quality. 
Remount commissions and dealers who arrive in the country 
after the season of work is over, or when the fairs are being held, 
have the advantage of a good selection ; and the season of the 
fairs is the best time, and in particular for such remount commis- 
sions as have to send their purchases by way of Hamburgh. 
The Danish horse is ordinarily put to agricultural work from 
two years and a half to three years old. He is never mounted 
until he has reached his fourth or fifth year. He is broke by kind 
management, and afterwards taught to go in harness by the side of 
some old horse. By nature he is mild and docile; and this, 
combined with the education he receives, accounts for its being by 
no means rare to see from twelve to fifteen horses under the con- 
voy of a single man. 
For many years no redhibitory laws existed in the Danish do- 
minions ; and since even such have been issued by the govern- 
ment, it is not in all parts that they are acknowledged. As the 
law now stands, the rule is, in case a horse be discovered to have 
any disease or vice thought to have existed at purchase, to seek 
the seller, and take care to have some witness or attestation of 
purchase, and then to find a veterinary surgeon of the neighbour- 
hood; the seller, on his part, being also expected to find some 
veterinarian or expert person. If these individuals agree in 
opinion that the horse was when purchased unsound or vicious, the 
seller is compelled to take him back on the spot, and return the 
purchase money . Should they not agree, however, the affair has 
to be carried to a court of judicature ; there probably long to remain 
awaiting decision, with the certainty, in the end, of entailing enor- 
mous expenses. 
At every horse-market or fair a veterinary surgeon attends, 
whose duty it is to arrest and send to the green-yard (fourriere ) 
any horse suspected of having a contagious disease. A Danish 
veterinary surgeon encountering a glandered horse, whether it be 
on the high road, or in a market or fair, has it in his power to 
condemn the animal to destruction on the spot, without his owner 
