EXAMINATION OF HORSES. 
105 
through such a trying ordeal, that it subjected the animal, though 
he were ever so sound, to consequent injury; that such ordeal 
was unnecessarily severe and protracted: and, above all, that 
(stepping out of their legitimate province) some practitioners 
had the pretension even to estimate the value, and set the 
market or just price of the animal. 
We listened with some attention to the remarks of the dealer; 
and we listened to them until we were reluctantly compelled to 
admit, that they were not altogether the offspring of blind or 
bigotted self-interest, or any desire or propensity towards unjust 
dealing. He stated his notions about dealing, and his only 
desires to be, that every man should “ have a fair chancebut 
that he was robbed of this “ chance*’ by unprofessional-like 
interference on the part of the veterinary surgeon. 
Now, if there be one person more than another hostile to the 
mode dealers of this country in general have of conducting their 
business, it is the writer of this article; and yet such has been 
the impression created upon our mind by such murmurings as 
the above, that, on serious reflection afterwards, we have really 
considered that the dealer, in the particular above alluded to, was 
unfairly used. And to this conclusion we have come, not hastily 
nor (as we have just insinuated) out of any sort of feeling or 
penchant whatever, towards the dealer. We have viewed the 
subject in all its bearings ; and we must declare it, as our opinion, 
that our acquaintance did make out a case in which the dealer 
himself appeared to be hardly dealt by. 
No one, in the year 1831, need be informed that a “ dealer*’ is 
by no means an eligible cognomen to walk about town with ; 
how or why such six letters should compose a word, at the pre¬ 
sent day, so unpalatable to the organs of speech, and inharmo¬ 
nious to the tympanum, we are not about to inquire ; we are merely 
going to shew that, with whatever reputation he may follow 
his calling, certainly no dealer can do so without having con¬ 
stantly to contend (in the way of business) with difficulties and 
perplexities of one sort or another, which, to get through at all, 
require no ordinary tact and judgment; and to get through 
honestly or respectably, demand no little share of a moral quality 
of a much scarcer description. 
