354 
REVIEW. 
Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpo, quid utile, quid non.—Hon. 
The Horse’s Mouth: shewing the Age by the Teeth. By 
Edward Mayhew, M.R.C. V.S. Embellished with numerous 
coloured Engravings, from Drawings made expressly for the 
Work, taken from authenticated Mouths: 8vo, pp. 194. Fores, 
London, 1849. 
In setting about the examination of a work on a subject attrac¬ 
tive from the known interest all persons concerned take in it, 
written by a man either already standing in a high position as an 
author or in acknowledged eminence as a member of his profes¬ 
sion, the reviewer has a right to anticipate a pleasure which, if not 
peculiar to his own feelings, is, at least, shared only by such col- 
laborateurs as are engaged in similar flowery fields of critical in¬ 
quiry. Such a work is the book now before us. To every man 
whose propensities incline horse-ward, and whose exchequer en¬ 
ables him to keep his hunters or his racers, his hackneys or his 
harness tits, the ages of his four-footed favourites will ever be 
a grand consideration with him, since by it he will be enabled, 
cceteris paribus, not only to estimate their respective capabilities 
for work, but likewise, at the end of the season, should he con¬ 
template sending them to “ the corner,” to make some sort of com¬ 
putation what returns they are likely to render to his pocket. In 
no class of horses is age of such consideration as with race-horses. 
A year in a racer’s age, at an early period of his life, is of grave 
import in calculating his powers of running. Condition is the only 
consideration that can weigh in the balance against it; and when 
there exists as much condition on the one side as on the other, the 
year in age—nay, the quarter of the year—is sure to tell in the 
race. The frauds, through the mis-representation of age at entry 
for stakes, which a few years ago were so unblushingly perpetrat¬ 
ed on the turf—and which, it is now believed, had been practised 
for years before—have opened ihe eyes of the racing public, and 
in particular of the Jockey Club, to the necessity of having re¬ 
course to that science which teaches age bv “ the horse’s mouth,” 
