COMMON H.ORSEo 387 
hunters are allowed to be among the noblest, most 
elegant, and useful animals in the world. Whilst 
the French, and many other European nations, 
seem only attentive to spirit and parade, we train 
ours principally for strength and dispatch. Theirs, 
however., have the advantage of never coming 
down before, as ours do, because, in breaking*, 
they put them more on their haunches, while we, 
perhaps, throw them too much forward. With 
unwearied attention, however, to the breed, and 
repeated trials of all the best horses in different 
parts of the world, ours are now become capable 
of performing what no others can. Among our 
racers we have had one (Childers) which has been 
known to pass over eighty-two feet and a half in a se- 
cond of time, a degree of fleetness perhaps unequal- 
led by any other horse. In the year 1745, the post- 
master of Stretton rode, on different horses, along 
the road to and from London, no less than two 
hundred and fifteen miles in eleven hours and a 
half, a rate of above eighteen miles an hour. And 
in July, .1788, a horse belonging to a gentleman 
of Biiliter-square, London, was trotted for a 
wager, thirty miles in an hour and twenty-five 
minutes, which is at the rate of more than twenty- 
one miles an hour. In London, there have been 
instances of a single horse drawing, for a short 
space, the weight of three tons ; and some of the 
pack horses of the north, usually carry burdens 
weighing upwards of four hundred pounds ; but 
the most remarkable proof of the strength of the 
British horses, is in our mill-horses, some of which 
have been known to carry, at one load, thirteen 
measures of corn, that in the whole would amount 
to more than nine hundred pounds in weight. 
Though endowed with vast strength, and great 
powers of body, such is the disposition of the 
liorse, that it rarely exerts cither to its master 5 © 
yoiu ii. " x x 
