nor should a man that is suited ever part from a horse who, taking him on the whole, does his business well and comfortably, under the idea of getting perfection. He will not get it, though dealers may assure him that he will. They live by keeping alive his hopes in this particular.

The first, best, and most strenuous advice I would give to any man wanting horses, not being a thorough, good, practical judge, yet wishing to keep the money together, I shall write in large characters

NEVER BUY FOR YOURSELF.

I am quite satisfied that most men who are good judges would, if they studied their pecuniary interest only, very often do much better by letting an equally good judge buy for them, than by purchasing for themselves. It must be observed, I say their pecuniary interest, without reference to their amusement, their whims or caprices. In some proof of this, it is quite well known there are many men who have been employed by dealers to go to fairs and other places, to purchase horses for them, and have always on the average bought well for their employers. These men have turned dealers, and when buying for themselves have been as unfortunate and injudicious in their purchases as before they were successful and prudent. I know one most respectable person he has rung the changes on being dealer's man and dealer himself several times over: he never succeeded for himself, and always has when employed for others.

The fact I have stated must at first appear somewhat unaccountable; but a little consideration will show that it arose from a very natural cause. I have said the person was a respectable man: I need not, therefore, say he was an honest one. Why he did not succeed as a dealer did not arise from ill luck, imprudence in his business, or from not being a good salesman; but from buying badly for himself. The cause was this. No man knew better the kind of horse to buy to pay; and when employed for others, his good judgment and honesty never allowed him to buy any other; but when laying out his own money, he departed from those fundamental rules that should invariably guide every man in purchasing to make money, or, at least, to avoid loss. He would sometimes give an imprudent price, because he fancied a horse; sometimes would let a money-making horse escape him, because he did not fancy him; and at other times would be tempted by a comparatively low price to buy one that his judgment condemned. While when acting for others he allowed no whim, fancies, or price to hoodwink his good judgment as to what ought or ought not to be purchased. If, therefore, such a man would allow fancy to mislead-in fact, direct his judgment, what may we not expect one to do who does not buy expressly for sale, and is not an experienced buyer?

Many a good judge is often so captivated by some peculiar point in a horse, either as to beauty or qualification, that he is tempted to buy him against his judgment; he has a right to do so if he can afford to pay for his whim, but he would not buy such a horse for another. In laying out the money of another person, or in giving advice to another, he would only look at intrinsic value; that value might consist in beauty, or action, or both; but he would use his best efforts to get his friend or employer value for his money-in short, would only buy a horse likely to "keep the money together."

If a man fell in love with a beautiful face and faultless figure, accompanied by the temper and disposition of a very fiend, perhaps nothing could induce him to forego possessing his idol; but he would not select such a one as a wife for a friend. I have seen good judges thus infatuated with a horse who, taking him in all particulars, was about as desirable an acquisition in his way. This is another idol. I congratulate the man who gets both; but looking to the latter only, if good judges, when buying for themselves, will sometimes get into such scrapes, what have the bad ones to expect?

The man who is not a horseman must further bear in mind the very different situation in which he will stand if he gets a horse that does not suit him, to that of the man who knows what he is about. If the latter gets hold of a horse with certain failings, he knows how to cure or palliate them; or if not, to so far hide them as to enable him to get rid of them, and the brute with them. The man who is not a horseman can do neither. Whatever the fault may be with him, it will be shown in all its deformity; very probably be made worse. Tattersall's "to be sold for what he will fetch" is the only remedy. There another Mr. Green gets accommodated; the original one, notwithstanding the lesson, no doubt going to market again; he will then probably get the significant colour changed, and he gets done Brown. This do possibly makes him look very Black, till he again sells, and again buys one who, on his mounting him, makes him look very Pale, and throws him. This makes him Black-and-blue: he sells him, and gets another bargain. Before mounting, he looks at his bruises; he finds they are Green; and when he is mounted, the people look at him, and declare he is Mr. Green again. I have given what I know to be good advice to such persons; that is not to buy at all. If, however, they are determined to run the risk of doing so, I will tell them the only sort of horse they will have a chance of not losing much by ; and, on the other side, the sort by which they must lose.

Every man knows the purpose or purposes for which he wants a horse; but as possibly he does not know the sort fit for the purpose, let him at least show this much judgment-let him buy one that has been satisfactorily doing the same sort of work he wants him for, and one that has been seasoned to it. Such a horse, from many circumstances, he may have the opportunity of buying at a fair price; in short, at something like his ordinary value. I am now only alluding to road horses, for we will not suppose any man insane enough to contemplate buying hunters unless he is a good judge of them; and indeed, unless he is this, and a good horseman to boot, he will have no occasion, or, I should think, inclination to possess them. Mrs. Glass says, "first catch a hare;" but she supposes you to be already a cook, otherwise she would probably have said "first make yourself a cook :" so I should say, first make yourself a horseman, then get the hunters.

When I recommend the tyro among horses only to buy such as he has seen doing in a satisfactory way the description of work for which he wants them, I must give him another caution, and that is, to consider whether he is judge enough to decide whether the horse has done this work in a proper manner; for a satisfactory way, as the term is now applicable, renders it by no means a definite one; as the question may be put, "satisfactory way" to whom? For if it is only satisfactory to

a person who does not know how work ought to be done, the buyer may get possession of a brute that he will not find it very easy to dispossess himself of under considerable loss. Doing work as it ought to be done, and only doing it somehow, just makes the difference, in two horses of similar age, soundness, and appearance, of being worth a hundred and forty, or only forty. It is true there are many persons who are content if their animal does his business anyhow, provided he does it ; and if they are satisfied with this, and have bought such a treasure at his proper value, he is as good value to them as the best stepper that ever looked through a bridle; but as men, who are not judges of horses as animals, are generally equally astray in their ideas of how they should do their business, the chances are they give as much for a brute as for a clever nag. This will never keep the money together;" for though a man may fancy his brute to be as good and worth as much as such a horse as the Marquis of Anglesey would ride or drive, if he attempts to sell him he will find the whole of his mistake, and only onefourth of his money, as the consequence of purchasing for himself. It therefore becomes equally necessary for such a man to consult a judge as to how a horse does his work that has been at it, as it does to take the opinion of such a man in purchasing one to put to work that he has not been at.

The next thing to be looked at is how the horse has been treated, for to bring one from good or careful management to its reverse, is certain loss. If a man who has a farm of poor land were to purchase cattle from the rich feed of Lincolnshire, he must lose by every head he buys, to a dead certainty. I did not mean an equivoque by the expression, but let it stand, for probably some of them, at least, would die; but if a lot of Scots or Kerries are put on the same land, they will not only keep the money together, but materially increase it.

So it is with horses: almost all of them will improve on additional care; but every one will lose in condition, and consequently value, by a want of that care to which they have been accustomed. If a man wants a horse to stand heat and cold, wet and dry, three or four sweats a day, with permission to clean himself against a post, nothing but a country butcher's hack would stand it. If, not wanting to use a horse thus unfairly, he wanted a quick buggy horse that could step over his seven miles into town in about thirty minutes, go back in the evening, and do this, we will say, five times a week, and keep in condition, he must get one that has been used to it, or he must bring him to it by slow degrees. The best I ever had I bought of a Whitechapel carcass-butcher, merely from seeing him coming into town, certainly at the rate of sixteen miles an hour, with a heavy man and two calves in the cart; but I gave eighty-five guineas for him, and the good butcher showed me two other nags, nearly as clever, and in as fine condition as hunters. He prided himself much on this; in fact, they could not be otherwise, for, partly by choice and partly from the nature of his business, his horses had the three great promoters of condition-good care, plenty of corn, and fast work.

Now, if any man bought one of these horses, and gave him less work and less corn, he might do very well, and look well, but he would not be in the condition our friend the butcher had them. With the same feeding and less work they would get fat, foul, good for little,

and perhaps either vicious or sluggish; with less corn and the same work they would become thin, dispirited, and debilitated; with the same corn and work, and bad care, they would get colds, swelled legs, inflamed lungs, farcy-in short, out of condition in every way. His horses were treated in the precise way to keep them in the highest state of health and condition, and whoever had bought them, the more or less he departed from the same way, the more or less would they lose tip-top condition-that is, such condition as is in all cases necessary to horses called on to exhibit both speed and lasting quality. This is not, of course, necessary to all horses; but, whatever the horse's business may be, to enable him to do that with ease to himself and owner, he should be in the best possible condition for the work he has to perform in fact, his condition, and consequent capability, should be such as to qualify him for greater exertion than he is daily called upon to perform, if we wish him to do his ordinary work pleasantly.

I have said that every horse will suffer from coming from a master by whom he had been treated well, to one by whom he would not be thus properly managed or cared for: this is indisputable. I have also added that most horses will improve by coming to a better home than the one they may have left; but the inexperienced purchaser must bear in mind that better treatment does not always mean increased feeding or diminished work; that must, of course, depend on the quantities the animal had had of each; if the feeding had not been in adequate proportion to the exertion, the horse would improve either by increased feed or lessened exertion; but a man might get into a serious predicament by taking one from high feeding and strong work, and only riding or driving him three or four miles a day at the rate of six miles per hour, though he might, to a certain degree, diminish the very high feed he had been accustomed to.

There are numberless horses going in coaches, omnibuses, and occasionally one in a cab let out for hire, that do their work well, quietly, and are in good condition; but give them to a man who would only require what would hardly be exercise to them, he would find them take a very extraordinary mode of showing their gratitude for the indulgence; and, vice versa, give a lady or gentleman's fat pet to a Newmarket jockey, merely to ride between the heats, if he had several races to ride during the day, the boys would kill him by merely bringing the clothes from the starting to the ending post of each race.

Such reasons as I have stated induce me strenuously to recommend persons not understanding the purchasing or management of horses, and still wishing to avoid inconvenience and loss, under all circumstances to avoid making purchases on their own judgment, or rather the want of it, for so sure as they do, they will suffer in person or pocket; for, supposing they purchase, or intend to do so, of a perfectly honest man, he is not to judge as to what is likely to suit: he will not sell them a lame or vicious horse; but it is not to be expected, if he has an unpromising young one, or a seasoned horse that is a brute, that he is to chronicle the imperfections of his own property, or to be philanthropic enough to keep such an animal, lest another should be inconvenienced by purchasing him. If, on the other hand, such a

person as I have mentioned goes to a rogue, of course he is done every way, both as to price and qualifications.

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We will suppose a much stronger case, and one where there is the least probability of deception being used on one hand, or error to be committed on the other, which is, where a man not conversant with horse affairs goes to purchase of another of similar character (two respectable tradesmen, we will say): the one having no further use for his horse, wishes to sell; the other wanting a horse, wishes to buy; the animal is known by both parties to have done his work quietly and honestly for the last twelve months, and never to have been during that time (in the common phrase) "sick or sorry." If the fresh purchaser wants such a horse for a different kind of purpose, or intends to treat him differently, be it with more or less indulgence, what the horse has been seen to do with his last master will be no guarantee of his doing equally well with his new one. But we will suppose the new one does intend in every particular to treat and use him as he has been used and treated before; surely a person might say, In such a case I might venture to buy without better advice than my own." Certainly you might, and possibly-I will say probably-the horse will suit you; and if so, you would do little harm in buying; but, should you want to sell, very probably you would, even under these favourable auspices, lose half your money; for this reason though the horse may have done his work honestly enough, he may be but a brute after all. His former purchaser may have bought him of a dealer who behaved as well as could be asked of him in selling a sound, quiet animal; but, depend on it, he got from the kind of customer to whom he sold, sixty for what was only worth thirty. The late owner tells you, true enough, "I am no horse-jockey" (upon which, I daresay, he much piques himself); "I do not want to make money by my horse; and though I ran the risk of how he would turn out, and have proved him a good horse" (mem. quære), "I only want what I gave for him." Nothing can be fairer than all this; still, though your friend is "no horse-jockey," you will find, if you want to sell, as he would if he had wanted to sell (unless he had found you, or some other knowing as little), that you are done clean out of thirty; the only difference being, the dealer knew he was selling at sixty what was only worth thirty, your friend sells for sixty what he believes to be worth that sum, though only worth half of it: you are both done, and your pocket derives no benefit from your friend not being "a horsejockey." Still, purchasing under such circumstances is perhaps the best and safest mode by which such persons can go to work, if they are determined to purchase for themselves.

(To be continued.)