76 AN ESSAY ON THE CONDITION OF HOUSES, &c. 
impetus ; but from the load upon them, their want of practice, 
and the debilitated state of their fibres, they are unequal to a 
continuance of these efforts ; and the volume of blood, as before- 
mentioned, within the system, being too great, a congestion of 
blood in some of the vessels of the lungs, or about the heart, is 
the consequence, and which not unfrequently proves fatal. At 
the best, it often leaves a cough, that even, with the aid of 
good treatment, requires months to remove. 
Much has been said of late on the ventilation of stables. I am 
as much disposed as any one to attach importance to a free circu- 
lation of air in a stable, accompanied with a due attention to its 
temperature ; but the fatality incident to young horses on their 
first coming to London has been hitherto chiefly attributed to the 
heated and impure atmosphere of the London stables. This, I 
believe, does contribute ; but, when it is considered that these 
horses arrive in London with fine, sleek, short coats, a point to 
which the breeder alway looks (and this is not to be obtained 
without warmth ; in fact, many of their stables are kept at as high 
a temperature as any in London), I am led to conclude that 
these casualties, which are so severely felt by the public, and 
more particularly by the London dealers, in their fresh purchases 
of young horses, are to be traced to another source, and to one 
more formidable than the change of stables. 
The truth is, that many of these fine young horses arrive in 
London in a state as incapable of exertion as a stall-fed bullock, 
occasioned by pampered living and long-continued rest. 
Instances of death that have occurred soon after purchase, 
from causes before stated, have too often been the subjects of 
action in our courts of law, and as often have the worthy judges 
and juries laboured to elicit the truth and assess the damages on 
the offending party. Not so often, however, in my humble opinion, 
have they been successful in their endeavours, owing to two cir- 
cumstances intimately connected with these unfortunate cases. 
In the first place, in consequence of the prejudice generally enter- 
tained against horse-dealers, the animal in question is presumed to 
have been defective before the sale ; and, secondly, this erroneous 
presumption appears made out by the state of the internal parts; 
for, on dissection, they often seem literally rotten, although per- 
haps the horse may have been sold by a dealer to a gentleman 
only one week before at a large sum. Now the fact is, that, not- 
withstanding the diseased state of the lungs, the horse might have 
been perfectly sound the preceding week when sold; so rapidly do 
the lungs of horses lose their texture when attacked with inflam- 
mation. The consequences have often been, that the industrious 
dealer has not only been saddled with the loss of the horse, but 
