of it, and no stiffness remains from the accident or mode of cure, I should say such a horse may be warranted perfectly sound; for the most unpractised eye could not overlook such a blemish, and in such a case it would be a blemish, and no more; but, as in the case of a low hip, if any stiffness ensues from exertion, it then becomes a positive unsound

ness.

Muscular wounds will often occasion a little stiffness of the surrounding parts, that is neither diminished nor increased by work; though in a general way it decreases as the muscles become warm by exertion. When that is the case, and the horse when cool is no more stiff than he was on first being brought from the stable, no fear need be entertained of any unpleasant consequences; but if from the effect of exertion the animal when cool is found more stiff than he was before the exertion, he is of course a decidedly unsound horse, and one likely to get worse by repetition of the same or increased exertion.

Wounds in the muscles of the thigh and hind quarter will often produce an inequality of step with the hind legs that renders the horse apparently more or less lame; he may nevertheless, so far as any required work goes, be perfectly sound, but of course could not be warranted so. If it existed in but a trifling degree, he might, however, be safely purchased at a proper price.

SPAVINS,

Like any other disease that interferes with the springy action of the hock, are in my estimation a most serious objection. If a horse has had spavins, has been fired for them, and no stiffness of the hock remains, of course the objection to them ceases also. But though such is often the happy result of proper treatment, I have remarked that a far greater number of horses, though rendered sound by it, never regain that elasticity. That," as Goldsmith says, "when once destroyed, can never be supplied." When this is the case, a great portion of the pleasantry of motion of the riding horse must be destroyed also.

66

My great dislike to spavins, and my dread of a horse throwing out one, arises from being aware that we cannot apply to the immediate root of the disease; we can only go a little below its surface; so that we have only to trust to external remedy and judge of how far the seat of disease is affected, by the diminution of its external appearance and the alleviation of the lameness, and the apparent pain of the animal. If spavin exists, or arises from a want of that sinovial fluid intended to lubricate the parts, all the firing-irons in the world can no more remedy the disease than the creaking of a dry wheel can be remedied without some unctuous matter to enable it to run more smoothly; in fact, the pain felt, and the lameness exhibited by the horse, and the creaking of the wheel, arise from nearly the same cause; and when this cause is the one that occasions lameness, and it has been of long standing (without pretending to any professional acquirement), I will venture to pronounce the case hopeless: the horse is incurably lame.

When spavin arises, which I believe is the common case from coalition (a very unprofessional phrase) of bone, we can in no way apply a remedy to the foundation of the disease; all we can therefore do is this :-If the lameness proceeds from irritation, by counter (that is, external) irritation we can lessen that irritation; but I suspect the cause will still

remain, do what we will. Thus, though the horse will not perhaps be lame, the flexibility of the joint, will remain materially impaired, and, in my opinion, the value of the animal be very much deteriorated indeed.

BOG-SPAVINS.

I have had many horses who had in a lesser or greater degree bogspavins, and never was unfortunate enough to have one lame with them; nor would I reject a horse thus affected that was sound; nor, so long as he continued so, would I attempt a removal of them. In the first place I should have very little hopes of effecting it, and the attempt to do so would, I should say, be much more likely to do injury than produce any good result. In a general way they cause neither pain nor inconvenience. Blood-spavins are in nearly the same part of the hock, and are merely an enlargement of the veins; unless very large, they seldom produce lameness, though I had a horse once very lame from one blood-spavin. I mentioned the circumstance in something I once wrote. A veterinary surgeon at Hounslow, I forget his name, but I think Walker, took up the vein very skilfully, sent the horse home in three days perfectly sound, and so he continued for months. I then sold him, and he went abroad.

CURBS.

The great objection to curbs is, that they sometimes arise from the same cause as spavins. When this is the case, they mostly cause a permanent stiffness. A very recent curb frequently yields to a blister; but, in a more advanced stage, nothing but the iron, and that effectually used, can be depended upon. Even then, should the hocks be badly formed by nature, I would not purchase such a horse. hocks will most probably give way again in some way; if they do not, as their bad formation renders them incapable of taking their share of supporting the hind-quarters, an additional stress will be laid on the back-sinews, and then they will go.

Such

We must not always judge of the probability of a horse standing work or the reverse, by the size of a spavin or a curb a very small enlargement in either case will make a horse as lame as he can be; while, on the contrary, the excrescence will sometimes be very great, and yet cause scarcely any perceptible inconvenience. This depends on the situation of the failing, and consequently on its interference with the motion of the hock; and, when it does thus interfere, I should consider the chance of a perfect cure very uncertain indeed.

THOROUGH PINS

Are, to use a homely term, a puffy enlargement, both inside and outside the hock. They are very common. Numbers of horses have them more or less. I never had a horse lame with them; though I had one with an enlargement of this sort, on both hocks, each side as large as half an orange, but never was even stiff after the hardest run.

CAPPED HOCKS

Are very unsightly, and generally proceed from bruises got in some way. If a harness-horse had them, I should strongly suspect him of having made too close an acquaintance with the splinter-bar. If the hock-that is, the swelling is soft, I never saw a horse lame with them. I saw one very decidedly so with capped hocks; but then the enlargement was nearly as hard as bone.

ENLARGEMENT OF THE FLEXOR-TENDON,

This is a most serious affair; the flexor-tendon being to the hind leg of the horse what the leather brace is to the C spring of a carriage. Cut the brace, the carriage comes at once on the perch; divide, or seriously injure the flexor-tendon, the hind leg is as useless as if it was broken. In such a case a bullet is the most humane resource. Sometimes, from inflammation of this part, the horse will become so lame as to be perfectly useless for the time being; but here do away with the cause, and the effect will cease, and the animal will probably become as sound as ever he was. No man would, of course, buy a horse lame from such a cause; I only, therefore, state the importance of this tendon, that no young purchaser may be talked into thinking lightly of any remains of injury to so important a part of the animal anatomy. How far the injury may have been radically cured, a professional man will decide; and in such a case his advice is very cheap at 10s. 6d.

THRUSHES

Are, by the generality of persons, held out as being much more objectionable than I ever considered them. The term, "I consider,'

or

"considered," may appear arrogant on my part; but if the reader will be kind enough to carry in mind that I only state what experience has taught me, without pretending to advise professionally, I trust I shall be held exonerated from any undue presumption. I know enough of a watch to see if the main-spring is broken, and enough to tell any one that when it is, the watch cannot go (some persons do not even know this), I then refer them to the watchmaker; so, in all I say of soundness or unsoundness in horses, I refer my readers to the veterinarian, who will tell him when and where I am wrong.

I have always held thrushes, taking them as a disease, as one of very little importance, and as one easily cured when merely a disease in themselves. They generally arise from neglect on the part of the groom; such as foul, wet litter, allowing grit and dirt to remain in the cleft of the frog, and that frog to become ragged, so as to admit dirt in its interstices. In such a case take a pen-knife (as good a tool as any), cut away all ragged parts. If any part of the horny substance is loose from the sensible part, cut that away also. Poultice the foot, to soften it; then apply a little horse-turpentine and lard for a few days, till the fætid smell and acrimonious discharge ceases; then use a mixture of verdigris and honey for a few days; and, finally, stop the foot with tar. To this, and a dose of physic, I have always found thrushes yield, when they were in themselves a disease; but when they are the effect of another cause, they become serious; that is, when they arise from high

narrow heels pressing the frog, so as to cause inflammation. In this case, unless you can do away with the cause, the effect must continue; and, as it is not once in fifty cases contracted heels can be cured, so it is not once in fifty cases thrushes can be cured when arising from such a cause. Give me a good sound open foot, and take off ten pounds out of fifty in the price of a horse for thrushes, I would never wish to buy one without them.

NARROW HEELS.

Having mentioned these in allusion to thrushes, I will say a word or two about them. Now, as relating to them as a disease, which many persons consider them to be (that is, they consider contracted hoofs as one), I should say there is no such disease as contracted hoofs or heels there are contracted feet, and a most lamentable, and in most cases incurable, discase it is; but the hoofs or heels being, or rather becoming, contracted, is the result of a disease, not one in itself.

Most men have, as boys, no doubt kept a horse-chesnut or common nut some time in their possession, and have found that after a time it has become shrunken in size and withered in appearance. Now, supposing the internal parts of either had retained all their juices, and consequently their pristine size, the outer skin or shell could not diminish in size; so I consider it to be with the horse's foot. Preserve that in its original healthy state and size, the hoof will not, in fact cannot, contract. When the internal parts shrink from inflammation and disease, the hoof follows the foot. If a twelve-stone man, wearing an elastic worsted waistcoat, wasted to nine stone, the waistcoat would still fit close to the body; but it. would not be the waistcoat that had shrunk of itself, but the body, and the waistcoat had followed it. If the hoofs were the cause of contracted feet, we should only have to rasp them till they were as pliable as the skin of the body, and the feet would immediately expand. Such is not, however, the case. Rasp the hoof as long as you will, unless you can restore the natural foot to its former health and vigour, it will have no inclination to expand; no, not if it was in the middle of the Mediterranean instead of being within a hoof, and unfortunately we cannot get at the sensible parts of the foot so as to restore their original healthy state, which in very few cases indeed ever returns after they have become in any way contracted.

CHARACTERS OF THE "FIELD."

BY BEE'S-WING.

THE SQUIREEN.

In accordance with my intentions when I finished my last character of the "Field," "The Hunting Parson," I again make my bow to the readers of the magazine, and humbly beg leave to introduce "The Squireen," a character well known in the hunting field-not by the

name, perhaps, that I have chosen to give him, but, when described, I have no doubt he will be recognised by the habitués of the "field." The name I have adopted is filched from that happy island of turf and potatoes, called Ireland, and is well suited to the "Character," to undergo examination. A squireen, or buckeen, in Ireland, is a certain biped, given to top-boots and corduroys, who makes himself conspicuous at fairs and races, in the vain hope that he may be taken for the son of the "masther" at the "big house," or some other great man, or, probably, a

"First cousin of my Lord Donoughmore."

And as there are persons in England of the same stamp as the squireens, but who have no recognised appellation, I thought I could not do better than give them the same name as their Hibernian brethren. Squireens, then, are of various breeds. Their fathers may be, or may have been, respectable farmers, grocers, or any other trade, and during the youthful days of the squireen, may have indulged him in a day's holiday to go and see the hounds throw off, upon the back of Old Dobbin,' or a quadruped with some equally high sounding name, with a caution to the youngster not to let his animal throw him off. By attending the meets occasionally, the youth gets ambitious, and "longs to follow to the field some"-hunting lord, encased in tops and leathers complete. As he gets older, he finds Old Dobbin is not up to fencing, and “ can't go the pace;" and as his father intends making him travel for the "concern," or go to market to sell the produce of the farm, &c., the squireen persuades the old gentleman that Dobbin's wind is knocked out--that is, that he will do to potter about near home with, but he is no use for journeys he must have something with a little more breeding in it. Α while, and he finds so much riding absolutely compels him to wear topboots, or there will be no end to the "overalls" he'll wear off; not that such would really be the case, but that other enterprising young men go to fairs and markets in top-boots, with long whips, trying to look like horse-dealers, calling out to every one on horseback, "I say, my man, what d'ye ax for that are hoss, cos I want one, and I'll have a good 'un, if I give a guinea for him, damme!" Next hunting season you will be astonished to find the gentleman who bestrode Old Dobbin come out on a weedy thoroughbred, with tops, drab breeches, and green coat with bright buttons, trying to do the gentleman. If you still notice him, you will see that, step by step, he gets fully equipped for the hunting-field, but with a slang air attached to everything: even his horse shares in the same slang appearance, as if the company he had kept lately had been of questionable character. The first few years of the squireen's hunting career, he never sees the "death," unless by accident; and his excuse to his friends is, generally, that his horse was topping a wall or something else, caught his hind feet, and came down with him "with a devil of a crash" (an exclamation of some kind is always necessary to give emphasis to the squireen's declarations). Perhaps his horse threw a shoe, fell dead lame, or did anything or nothing. Still he finds an excuse for not being in at the death, without impeaching his own character as a rider-for, according to his own account, he goes fastest, takes the highest leaps, and gets the most ugly falls of any man in the field; and, notwithstanding his falls, he seldom or never gets hurt, tak