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106 • HOltSE-DEALING, AND 
It is hardly necessary for a person to possess a knowledge of 
animal mechanism to be convinced what a very precarious sort 
of mercantile commodity an animal must be. A watch, and a 
steam-engine, are both complicated pieces of machinery, and 
such as require skilful artists to understand and take the ma¬ 
nagement of: but they are neither of them to be compared, even 
in a mechanical point of view, to an animate machine; which, 
moreover, possesses this vital difference, that (while the others 
are set a-going, and can be stopped and regulated at the will of 
their owners) its internal mechanism works without the eontroul 
even of the animal itself, much less of its possessor; and often 
works, in spite of all his art can effect, to the destruction even of 
itself. And when the disorders and casualties of horses (above 
all other animals) are taken into our consideration, together w ith 
their continual exposure to the abuses and causes producing them, 
it becomes a matter of surprise to us that there are so many really 
and passably “ sound' 1 horses as do come before us. 
To set all this in a stronger light, and to point out one out of 
the many vexatious disappointments inseparable from the trade 
of horse-dealing :—a dealer buys “ a lot of young horses 11 in the 
country, all sound and promising ; he has them travelled with 
all possible care to the metropolis, where he calculates his 
profits on them at so much. By the time they arrive in town, it 
being the spring or autumnal season of the year, some have 
“ caught colds’ 1 on the road ; and by the time they have so¬ 
journed a little in his heated w arehouse (stables), some of these 
contract inflammations in their lungs, of which one or two die, 
and tw o or three more become so reduced, that they are rendered 
unfit to show for several w eeks, or perhaps months, to come. 
Looking at such a case as this (and it is a very common case), 
w e have no right to express surprise or dissatisfaction at the 
dealer's profits being gveat: w ere they not great, he could not 
live by his business. We do not say this, however, without 
being w ell aware that oftentinies their profits are enormous, and 
altogether unreasonable, nay, even fraudulent; for a species of 
fraud it is w hen the animal w hich a dealer is vending at a first- 
rate price, is itself really of inferior quality. 
This subject of price , brings us to the consideration of a point 
