Professional Horsemen

THE fraternity of professional horsemen is a miscellaneous one : have its members anything in common ? If there be anything of this sort, it is probably a certain gravity of look and demeanor. But we must distinguish, for there are several kinds of gravity among horsemen. There is the gravity of the trainer, which is that of a man accustomed to subdue riotous colts, and to do it without noise or violence ; there is the gravity of the dealer, which is craft and subtlety; there is the gravity of the “ vet,” which is professional; and finally, there is the gravity of the betting man, which is suspense and greed. This lastmentioned trait did not escape the notice of Thackeray, who said: “ What strikes me especially in the outward demeanor of sporting youth is their amazing gravity, their conciseness of speech, and careworn and moody air. In the smoking-room at the Regent, when Joe Millerson will be setting the whole room in a roar with laughter, you hear young Messrs. Spavin and Cockspur grumbling together in a corner. ‘ I ’ll take your five-and-twenty to one about Brother to Bluenose,’ whispers Spavin. ‘ Can’t do it at the price,’ Cockspur says, wagging his head ominously. The betting book is always present in the minds of those unfortunate youngsters. I think I hate that work even more than the Peerage.”

The gravity of one who trains and drives trotters (like the gravity of a locomotive engineer) is that of a man who has a delicate and sometimes dangerous machine to handle. The type is a marked one : a spare, wiry person, weighing one hundred and forty or fifty pounds, with a quiet manner and a low voice. He unites the two qualities that are essential to the proper handling of horses, namely, firmness and gentleness. The houyhnhnm, being a nervous, finely organized animal, is an intuitive judge of character; and it is only to a Yahoo of the right sort that he will yield full obedience.

In dealing with horses there are two things to be done: first, to control and restrain them ; secondly, to stimulate and encourage them to perform the greatest efforts of which they are capable. For a dozen men that can do the first, you will find only one who can do the second. But that one has an extraordinary power; at a word from him and a touch on the reins, the horse will freely strike a pace to which another man cannot urge him by voice or whip or spur. It would be hard to say what is the secret of this power, but I doubt if it is ever found in any man not possessed both of a strong will and of a feeling for dumb animals. The “ magnetism ” that people talk about is, I suspect, simply the fortunate combination of these two qualities.

Sometimes it crops out in unexpected places. I was once riding on the back seat of an open carriage drawn by two lazy horses. On the front seat, beside the driver, sat a Methodist minister, — a solemn-faced person, with a long and, except that his upper lip was shaven, a full beard. He was dressed in black clothes, and altogether looked the very antipodes of a horsy man. The team were plodding slowly along, with heads and tails down, when, at his request, the reins were handed over to the parson. As soon as he had taken them, and had uttered one quiet word of command, the nags seemed to be electrified: up went their heads and tails ; ten years slipped off their backs, and away they started at an elastic twelve-miles-an-hour gait. These horses not only obeyed the minister, but they took pleasure in obeying him. Alas ! a great driver was thrown away in that man.

A trainer or driver may, it is true, succeed fairly well with horses in spite of certain defects in his temperament or character. With ordinary horses, pluck in riding or driving can usually be made to take the place of nerve. Whyte Melville analyzed these two qualities very justly. Pluck, he said, is that kind of courage or determination which enables a man to do what he is afraid to do, whereas nerve is the absence of fear; the one being chiefly a moral, the other perhaps chiefly a physical quality.

Anthony Trollope has given a good and humorous illustration of pluck in his novel The Small House at Allington, where Mr. Palliser, having entered upon a decorous flirtation with Lady Dumbello, the very discreet daughter of Archdeacon Grantly, determines to call her by her Christian name. When the opportunity arises, Mr. Palliser does not feel much heart for the dangerous familiarity ; but still he perseveres, having, as Trollope acutely remarks, that sort of pluck which would make him contemptible in his own eyes if he failed through fear to carry out an intention deliberately formed.

“ ‘ Griselda,’ he said, and it must be admitted that his tone was not bad. The word sank softly into her ear, like small rain upon moss, and it sank into no other ear. ‘ Griselda!’

“' Mr. Palliser ! ’ said she ; and though she made no scene, though she merely glanced upon him once, he could see that he was wrong.

“ ‘ May I not call you so ? ’

“ ‘ Certainly not. Shall I ask you to see if my people are there ? ’ ”

Doubtless Mr. Palliser would have shown the same pluck in the hunting-held, not hesitating to send his horse at a fence, even though it appeared to him terrifically high.

Pluck, as I have said, will, for most purposes, take the place of nerve ; but it will not always do so, because the horse can often detect any want of nerve. Pluck will put a man on a dangerous beast, but after he has got there it may not prevent his knees from trembling a little. The horse observes that fact ; he knows what it means, and forthwith he throws the rider off. A vicious horse might kick a plucky man who, with a grain of hesitation in his manner, ventured into the animal’s stall; whereas he would not kick a man of iron nerve who approached him without fear. In general, a human being without fear is almost proof against the lower animals ; and this explains the immunity of drunken men and children, from the harms that might easily befall them.

“ A quarter of a century ago,” relates a writer in Wallace’s Monthly, “there was a trotter called General Grant. He was as vicious a brute as ever wore iron, and it was the exception when his groom did not have trouble with him. This same groom was a periodical drunkard ; but when he would come to the track filled with liquor, and throw himself in a drunken stupor on the floor of the horse’s stall, General Grant would go to the farthest corner of the box and tremble with fear. He knew that the man was in some mysterious way changed, so that he was reckless in approaching the stallion; and this unconscious courage, which in his sober moments he could not possibly assume, was his protection from an attack that would have ended in his death. Once the man was released from the thralldom of liquor, and became wary of the stallion, the latter appreciated the fact, and again asserted his supremacy.”

Rarely, if ever, will a dog bite one who meets his assault with composure and looks the beast firmly in the eye.

It will thus be seen that the successful trainer and driver is a superior person, being possessed of pluck, nerve, firmness of wid, a sympathetic intelligence, and a quiet manner. Unfortunately, he is not always absolutely honest, although several noted drivers of trotting horses have been conspicuous for integrity as well as for skill. This was the case with Hiram Woodruff, a man of national reputation in his day, and the author of The Trotting Horse of America, by far the best hook, both as regards style and substance, ever written on the subject.

Hiram Woodruff, like all other persons who possess an extraordinary attraction for dumb animals, had the simplicity, the primitive qualities, of one who stands close to nature. There was nothing artificial or conventional or false about him; he was brave and gentle and frank. His power over horses was so remarkable that it seemed to be almost mysterious, and it was a matter of Common discussion and of various explanation among the frequenters of the track in his lifetime. “The secret was,” Mr. George Wilkes says, “ that he gained the confidence of his horses through their affections, and after that everything was easy ; ” and Mr. Wilkes continues : —

“ When he walked through his stables, the undoubted accord which he had established with its glossy inmates was at once evinced by the low whinnies of welcome which would greet his kindly presence as he went from stall to stall. They knew him for the friend who mixed among them almost as if he were an equal, and who never ceased to talk to them as if they were his equals, when he took them out for their exercise, or even when he encouraged them during the strife of the arena.”

“Perhaps Flora Temple,” Mr. Wilkes adds, “ was the most remarkable instance of the great horseman’s conquest over animal affection during his career. She loved him with an unmistakable cordiality, and when he and she were engaged in some of their most notable struggles, the man and horse seemed to be but parts of the same creature, animated by the fury of a common purpose.”

Hiram Woodruff won some races, during his career, which appeared to the spectators irretrievably lost. With Ripton, for example, a little white-legged bay horse of immense courage, he once beat a trotter called Americas, when the odds Were 100 to 5 against him. It was after this race that a gambler who had lost his money declared: “I’ll tell you what it is : it is twenty or thirty per cent in favor of any horse that Hiram Woodruff drives. I don’t care who drives the other.”

Of recent years the trotting horse has improved very much in “quality.” Formerly, the typical trotter was a coarselymade, ugly-headed brute, and he was often driven successfully by men of a coarse, rough stamp, red-faced fellows inclining to be fat. Nowadays, the trotter, in fineness of organization, in the high development of his nervous system, closely resembles the thoroughbred runner, and he requires more delicate handling than some drivers of the old stamp were competent to give him. There is a great deal of truth in that much-ridiculed line, “Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.” If you should put a thin, nervous little man to driving fat oxen, both the oxen and he would be worn out, from incompatibility of temper, at the end of the day’s work.

The reason why many English horses are vicious is that they are better bred than the men who take care of them. The great reason why Arabian horses are absolutely kind is that the Arabians are a well-bred race; they are gentle in the full sense of the word.

Trainers and drivers are usually, as I have said, of one type. The horse dealer, on the other hand, is of many types; hut his traits are so marked that he is easily recognizable, especially when one meets him on the road. He sits more squarely in his seat than do the generality of men ; he wears gloves, and grasps the reins firmly, yet almost carelessly, his hat is pulled over his brows a little lower than is customary with common mortals; his expression is both shrewd and masterful; his lips are thin, and the corners of his mouth are drawn down.

The horse dealer has the imperiousness of one accustomed to subdue powerful animals; he has, as a rule, the good humor of one who leads a healthy outdoor life: but, with reluctance be it said, these excellent qualities are as nothing compared with the craft and subtlety, with the mists of fabrication and imposture, by which he is enveloped. As to the future state of the horse dealer, I fear that there can be nothing problematic about it, unless indeed Providence has arranged for him a special dispensation. Certainly there is this to be said in extenuation of his crimes : to sell a horse without lying and cheating is next door to impossible, and therefore lying and cheating are, in some sense, forced upon the horse dealer. We might even regard him, not altogether without reason, as a great public benefactor, as a martyr who sacrifices His own moral character for the good of the community. He is all that stands between us and the decay of a noble industry. We must have horses for use in our business and in our pleasures : in general, it is impossible to raise them for ourselves ; in general, also, we should never buy a horse if we knew the whole truth about him ; and therefore, as I say, the falsity of the “ jock ” is a necessary link in the great chain of human activities.

I am led to believe that the dealers themselves, when they reason about the subject at all, — which is but seldom, — take precisely the view here stated. They recognize, in a far-off way, the beauty of veracity, but they regard it as something to-be expected only of saints and heroes. To the horse dealer honesty is a “ counsel of perfection,” just as celibacy and poverty are counsels of perfection to the layman who, having no vocation to be a monk, has married a wife and is endeavoring to acquire property. Occasionally, when a dealer does happen to be absolutely honest, he is looked upon by his fellows with a strange mixture of contempt and admiration. “ How is Soand-So getting along ? ” I inquired of an ordinary dealer in reference to one of real integrity. “ Not very well,” was the reply. “ But he is a good man and a good horseman,” I said. “ Oh ye-es, ye-es ; but the fact is, George is too honest, — he can’t sell a horse.”

I have sometimes thought — though I suppose the scheme is too repugnant to American ideas ever to be carried out — that there ought to be a caste of horse dealers, marked off like pariahs or like the Egyptian paraschistes from the rest of the community. Such a caste could be formed from felons of the better educated sort. Thus, embezzlers, burglars, forgers, bank cashiers, trustees, and the like, after a short term of imprisonment, might be licensed by the state to set up as horse dealers, — the occupation being at the same time forbidden to all persons unconvicted of crime, This would carry out exactly the fundamental idea of caste which has thus been stated by a high authority : “ Caste rests upon the religious idea of an indelible stain resting on certain men, and the social idea of certain functions being committed to certain classes.” However, I merely throw this out as a passing suggestion, and now I shall try to indicate a few of the common types among horse dealers.

Henry Cohen is a Polish Jew who sells horses at auction and at private sale. He is a short, fat, tough little man, with a round head, a stubborn chin, and a surly expression. Being very warm-blooded, he is usually in his shirt sleeves, and he always carries a whip in his hand. Cohen resorts to no persuasive arts; his method is the bullying one, and his customers being chiefly countrymen and other unsophisticated persons, he fairly dragoons them into buying. There is an air of gloom about Cohen, — the gloom of one whose eye is unalterably fixed upon the main chance. Possibly, also, a vague consciousness of iniquity, not rising to repentance nor deepening to remorse, weighs upon him a little. It may be doubted if any man, even though he be a horse dealer, and a Jew at that, and a Polish Jew to boot, can assume the attitude of a pirate toward the community without feeling a little strangeness in the situation, as if it were something not quite intended by nature.

Henry Cohen has the fascination which rats or snakes have for people who abhor them. Let us enter his stable. It is a dark, low-studded, ill-smelling place. On both sides we find long rows of horses, a swinging board separating each animal from his neighbor. They are almost all coarse-bred, heavyheaded brutes ; most of them are large, suitable for farm or teamsters’ work, and nearly all are young and fat. There is, however, a sprinkling of “ secondhand ” horses (euphemistically known as “ acclimated ” horses), lean, sad-eyed, and forlorn, many of them lame, not a few diseased. They are sent here by way of passage to some stage of equine existence even harder than that which they have experienced already. Halfsavage, scantily-clad hostlers, pale from the preceding night’s debauch, hurry about, while up and down the broad aisle struts Cohen, whip in hand, now cursing one of his men, now bluffly commending some particular “ harse ” to a possible customer, now giving a vicious blow to an unfortunate beast who has gone to sleep with his hind legs in the passageway. Cohen never patted a horse in his life. He takes no pleasure in horses, has no feeling for them, cares not how much they suffer. To him the noble animal is a mere machine, out of which money can be made. The reader may laugh at the notion, but I confess that to me the atmosphere of Cohen’s stable always seems laden with tragedy, — the tragedy of equine suffering, past and to come ; the tragedy of broken bones and broken necks among human beings ; the tragedy of lifelong cruelty and deceit.

Stupid and vicious horses seem to gravitate by a kind of instinct to Cohen’s stable. Observe the big, flopping ears, the “ fiddle-case ” head, the narrow forehead, the dull, timorous eyes of that long - legged black horse yonder. Some day, — it may be six hours, or six weeks, or six years from now, — that fellow will run away out of fright, and the honest farmer who owns him will be pitched headlong on the rocks at the side of the road. Here stands another, a stoutly built chestnut mare, who looks backward at us from the corner of her eye, at the same time disclosing the white thereof. Her destiny is probably to kick somebody in the head and fracture his skull. Dangerous and halfbroken horses are at their best in the heart of a city, where their attention is so dissipated that no single object can much affect them. But Cohen’s horses frequently balk and kick, and occasionally jump into a passing wagon directly in front of his stable (which lies upon a very busy street) ; what, then, must they do in the country when they are first harnessed to a plough or driven to the station ! Not long ago, a horse warranted by him as “ sound and kind ” ran away three days after he was sold, smashed the wagon, and broke two or three bones in the body of the purchaser. This affair cost Mr. Cohen fifteen hundred dollars, that amount being awarded against him in damages by a jury of his peers.

If there be a worse than Cohen in the business, he will probably be found among a small and peculiar class of men who deal entirely in unsound horses. These fellows commonly live in the suburbs, coming to town on Wednesdays and Saturdays to make their purchases at the auction stables and in contiguous streets. They acquire some skill in doctoring, and more, no doubt, in “ fixing up ” horses. In fact, they get to think that nothing lies beyond the reach of their arts in this direction, and they become enamored of the business. It is needless to say that they never grow rich from it. On the contrary, being brought into frequent contact with peddlers, tinkers, junk dealers, and other persons, who are often professional thieves as well, they usually end by becoming criminals themselves, and land where they belong, in jail. In the remote country there is a somewhat similar class, men who occupy rough mountain farms, cultivating the soil a little, “ teaming ” a little, swapping and selling horses and cows whenever they have opportunity, and drinking all the bad whiskey on which they can lay hands by fair means or foul. They are a wild, brutal set, living in poverty and squalor, and bringing up large families under the worst possible conditions.

Such, roughly sketched, are certain horse dealers of the lowest stamp ; let us now turn to a few in the upper ranks of the business. There is Deacon Dunham, for example. The deacon — I understand that he really holds this position in a flourishing “ Orthodox ” church — is a little man, having a short, silky brown beard, a rather large aquiline nose, and a quick, furtive air. He is much given to wearing a flat cap with a visor, and a coat with capes. Thus attired, with a whip over his shoulder, he creeps softly about a sale stable, like a cat; glancing sharply at the horses, looking in their mouths, running his hand swiftly down their legs, and “ sizing them up,” as the vulgar phrase is, with astonishing rapidity. He forms an odd contrast to the burly jockeys of whom he buys horses ; but he knows how to fraternize with them. I have often seen the deacon slap one of these fellows on the back, after whispering in his ear some joke suitable to his understanding, and then scurry off, with head bent down and shoulders shrugged together. I know nothing against Deacon Dunham. He may be as honest as the day, and the fact that he has done a large business for many years tends to establish his integrity; but nevertheless I cannot love him.

Of a very different type is Jim Brodbine, a large man, with a florid complexion and black mustache. Mr. Brodbine is a fashionable dealer who gets enormous prices ; but the pace which he has set for himself is too fast. Expensive clothes, the biggest and strongest cigars, and unlimited champagne and whiskey are among his forms of self-indulgence. It is just as certain that before many years Mr. Brodbine will become bankrupt in health and in purse as it is that Deacon Dunham will die in the odor of sanctity, with a fat bank account.

Cohen, Deacon Dunham, and Brodbine are city dealers ; Joshua Simpkins is a countryman, but he does an extensive business. Horses of many kinds pass through his hands, — trotters from Kentucky, saddle horses from Tennessee, family horses from all parts. In a single year he sold ten hundred and fifty animals, good, bad, and indifferent; and between times he breaks colts, and develops trotters on a little track in front of his stable. A broad avenue lined by maple-trees leads to his quarters, and the surrounding country is diversified and beautiful. Mr. Simpkins has a well-knit frame, a face ruddy from continual exposure, a shrewd mouth, and the most restless eye that ever glittered in mortal face. It is a steel-blue eye, cold and hard, and its glance plays incessantly up and down, and all around. While you are talking with him at his big barn door, Mr. Simpkins’s eye will take excursions in the neighborhood; noting the condition of the hay crop, detecting the weak points of your horse, putting a price on a colt in the held down yonder, observing the shortcomings of a groom who is dressing a horse behind him, and reading your character, so far as it relates to buying and selling, by a swift upward glance under his yellow eyebrows. Joshua Simpkins’s eye does the work of a dozen ordinary eyes ; it is difficult to imagine it at rest even in sleep, and sad to think that its energy will be quenched in the grave before many years have passed. For his own sake, I trust that Simpkins will be kicked to death or have his neck broken in a runaway accident, rather than fade out of life by degrees. It would be hard indeed for a man of his activity, mental and physical, to retire by painful stages from the sulky to the armchair, and from the armchair to his bed.

Simpkins, like most horse dealers, has a great flow of language ; but, like others of his craft, he is utterly irresponsive on any subject except that which lies near his pocket. Concerning the horses that he wants to sell he will talk by the hour, but change the topic to your horse or to some other man’s horse, or to politics, or to Ibsen, and forthwith the mind of Simpkins will wander like his eye.

Very few dealers are religious men, but I once knew a Methodist minister who dabbled in horseflesh, — not flagrantly ; nothing extravagant was ever laid to his charge; and if, in selling a horse, he used the same eloquence that served him in the pulpit, who shall complain ? There was another Methodist minister, a resident of Michigan, who got up some trotting races, entered his own horses, and actually won all the prizes. But this was going a little too far, even for these lax times. The brethren disciplined him, so that he was forced to give up one calling or the other, and I believe it was the ministerial one that went by the board. There is, however, a close connection between the jockey’s and the religious temperament. Both are emotional. The dealer is almost always a man of quick and lively feelings. He easily becomes impressed with the good qualities of a horse, and words of warm commendation fall thick and fast from his lips. A certain enthusiasm, almost an ecstasy, takes possession of him ; but fortunately it passes off when a sale has been effected. I never knew a dealer to be afflicted with chronic insanity.

But I have known some venerable white-bearded jocks. as to whom (I say it without irreverence) no violence would be done were they transferred forthwith to the pulpit. These men had long, smooth-shaven upper lips, shaggy eyebrows, and big, emotional mouths. Sometimes this emotional element becomes too pervading, and leads the dealer into absolute garrulonsness. This is the case with Mr. S. Kneescalper, for instance, who, from long indulgence in words having little or no basis in fact, has lost all sense of proportion or consistency in his speech, — to say nothing of veracity. Kneescalper pours out a steady stream of lies that do not hang together. I have often thought that if he could be exhibited to a boy who threatened to become loquacious, just as drunken Helots were exhibited to the Spartan youth, the lesson might be effective. Kneescalper is a good judge of horses, but he would do just as well if he were dumb.

I have spoken of the emotional element in the dealer. This is one of three qualities essential to success in his calling, the other two being the dramatic instinct and a knowledge of human nature. The very manner in which the dealer sits in his wagon is distinctive, as I have suggested already, and it is also, in a quiet way, dramatic. So is his manipulation of the reins. There are some dealers who can add a hundred dollars, at least, to the value of a roadster by the admiring, cautious manner in which they sit behind him and watch his ears. I am acquainted with one man who can strip the mud from a very dirty wagon — to the mind’s eye — by the magnificent way in which he turns a corner ; and the artistic holding of a whip diagonally across the horse’s back has been known to transform a ten - dollar harness into a beautiful silver - mounted caparison. The dramatic element, of course, comes into play when the virtues of a particular horse are described to a possible customer, and so does the third quality, a knowledge of human nature. A dealer can often effect a sale by gently leading a visitor to pick out a horse for himself. He then pretends that he was rather keeping that special horse in the background, so as to sell the inferior animals first ; and the customer, beingflattered by this proof of his own acuteness, closes the bargain.

I remember one case where a young man, who considered himself a match for any jockey, paid a visit to the stables of a country dealer notorious for cheating, and thus voluntarily put his head in the lion’s mouth. When he arrived, a very handsome chestnut gelding happened to be standing in harness on the barn floor, and he tried him first. Afterward he looked the others over, drove two or three of them, and finally settled on a choice between the chestnut gelding and a bay mare, the two being equally attractive and the price the same. The dealer praised the mare very highly, but did not say much about the gelding. “ Oho ! said the clever young man to himself. “ This fellow wants to sell the mare and keep the gelding. That means that the gelding is the more valuable of the two. I will take him, and disappoint the rogue.” But this line of reasoning was exactly what the rogue had calculated upon; the smart young man had fallen into the pit dug for him by the astute dealer. Accordingly, the chestnut gelding was bought and paid for, and the new owner led the horse off behind his wagon, in a state of great satisfaction with himself and the steed. On the way home, the road being a long one, he stopped to bait; and after dinner he gave orders to have the chestnut harnessed, intending to drive him and to lead his old horse for the remainder of the journey. Meanwhile he sat down to finish a cigar on the piazza in front of the tavern. Half an hour went by, and the horses had not appeared ; fifteen minutes more passed ; and now the young man, very impatient and somewhat alarmed, was just starting for the stable, when the hostler approached. The fellow was pale, and his jacket had been half torn from his back. “ We can’t harness that horse of yours, sir, nohow ! ” be exclaimed. “ He has kicked my helper and bitten me; and it’s my belief that the best man on earth could n’t put the bridle on him.” Such was very nearly the case. The mortified purchaser learned afterward that his beautiful chestnut horse (which he sold later at half price) had worn a bridle, night and day, for two weeks before he bought him. However, having relied upon his own acuteness, he pocketed the loss and said nothing about it.

There remains one other class of horsemen, which I cannot pass over without a word or two. I mean the vets, and their predecessors the horse doctors. One of my earliest and most intense recollections is that of a horse and cow doctor who practiced in the country town where I spent part of my boyhood. He was a short, squat Irishman, with grizzly hair and short grizzly beard. I never saw him without a little cuddy pipe in his mouth ; and I think that he must have been of an asthmatic habit, for I remember that he wheezed very much in his talk. He said little, but that little was sententious and to the point. To me, an infant hip pomaniac, this dirty little man (for he was very dirty) seemed to embody all knowledge, all sagacity, — at least all that were worth the having. I hung upon his words, as if he had been Abelard, and I his disciple. I realized, perhaps, in a vague way, that my estimate of the horse doctor was not altogether shared by the adult members of the family. I felt that they might be so fatuous as to put the minister and the judge and the physician above him; but this feeling did not shake my own opinion in the least. Children have an odd way of trusting their instincts in tacit defiance of their elders. What would I not give if, at this moment, I could look up to any human being with that utter reliance upon his wisdom which, at the age of twelve, I had with respect to the horse doctor I But now, after the disappointing experience of a lifetime. I am led to doubt if the little man was really so wise as he looked. These irregular practitioners probably did more harm than good. They had some native wit, some experience, but a great part of their lore consisted of irrational and traditionary ideas which had nothing but age to recommend them.

The vet, though sometimes a charlatan, sometimes dishonest, and sometimes given to drink, is, on the whole, a vast improvement upon the uneducated horse doctor of former times. A really good vet is a tower of strength to the horse owner, and something little less than a guardian angel to the ordinary purchaser who buys a horse of a dealer, and employs the vet to examine him for soundness. Occasionally, the modern vet is a little too much of a fine gentleman ; but in his best estate he has a peculiar, an indefinable stamp of his own. Perhaps it might be described as a professional air tempered slightly by rakishness. The ideal vet has the grave look of a physician, and yet in the cut of his hat, in the color of his necktie, in the shape of his coat, or in some other trifle there will be a picturesque suggestion of horsiness, which, upon careful examination, will be apparent also in the expression of his face. The same distinct and pleasant air, semi-medical and semi-sporting, is found, too, in the equipage of the vet. And what a good horse he drives ! Commonly, he affects a cob ; not one of your coarsebred, fat, chunky cobs, such as figure in magnificent harness at horse shows, but a well-bred cob, with thin, flat legs as hard as iron, —a cob that is broad between the eyes, and has delicately cut ears which flash forward and backward, indicating a lively but docile disposition. Vets, to their credit be it said, become fond of their horses, and seldom change them. I never knew one to drive a stupid animal; and some of the best, and perhaps I may add truest horse stories that I have ever told related to nags that were in this line of business.

I fancy that the profession of a vet tends to become hereditary ; I know several families, at least, in which that is the case. And certainly, in these days of overcrowded professions and trades, a man might do worse than to bring up his son to this calling. To begin with, the vet always has his office in a stable, — a fact very captivating to a well-regulated, boyish imagination, and not without its charm even for certain persons of mature years. His occupation is a manly, wholesome, outdoor one ; he is subjected to no extraordinary temptations, and he has many opportunities to relieve the suffering of dumb and innocent animals. Of all professional horsemen, the vet deserves best both of men and horses.

Henry Childs Merwin.