108 
HORSE-DEALING, AND 
fixed price can hardly be set. A good horse is invaluable: a bad 
one, worthless. What would not one man give for a “ clever 
hackney' ? another, for a “perfect hunter 1 ’? a third, for an ex¬ 
cellent and quiet chaise-horse? a fourth, for a superb charger? 
a fifth, for a matchless racer ? And no consideration whatever 
would induce many persons, in the possession of these perfections 
of their kind, to part with them. The dealer is the only person 
of whom they are likely to be obtained; and when such a know n 
animal proves to be for sale in his hands, can we wonder that 
he should make a large demand for him? Certainly not, when 
we calculate that not one in a thousand ever comes up to our 
ideas of perfection. 
Many might suppose that horse-dealing was an exceedingly 
lucrative business. And so it most undeniably is on occasions: 
but, taking it in the aggregate, we for our part should say, 
that, generally speaking, it was a very speculative and hazardous 
undertaking. It is true that several individuals, dealers’in horses, 
in London more particularly, might be named who have realised 
large fortunes by the traffic: but, were we to set the names 
of those that have proved unfortunate against them—those who 
have not a guinea to call their own, were their affairs wound up, 
together with the many who have failed and come to ruin—we 
apprehend the catalogue would present such a contrast, as 
would alter the opinion of him who might, otherwise, have 
entertained most delusive notions about horse-dealing\ 
The practice of horse-dealing, in itself, is one that calls forth 
all the skill and craft in the trade a man can possess himself of; 
at the same time that it demands acute perception, sound 
judgment, forbearance, and temper. When a dealer finds him¬ 
self embarked in the middle of a horse-fair for the purpose of 
“ buying a lot of horses,*’ he is constrained to see “ the thing 
he wants’’ with “half an eye:” but he has no sooner found it, 
than he need have as many eyes as Argus had to look over 
the animal in the twinkling of an eye, to see that it be “all 
right.” The business, however, is often done more on the faith 
of the breeder or vender in the country of whom the London 
dealer takes “the lot,” perhaps even with scarcely any “looking 
