persons will agree with me when I say there is no purpose to which we put the horse where a proper education is more necessary or more wanting than to the horse intended for harness. It is quite true, that in a proper carriage, with strong tackle on him and a commanding bit, a coachman-that is, a workman in this way-with plenty of nerve, will drive anything; but as nine-tenths of the persons who do drive are not workmen, many have not nerve, and very many have not temper, the rendering a horse perfectly quiet in harness is really a matter of vital importance. A horse with a rider on his back can only kill or maim that one rider, save and except sundry men, women, children, porkers, muttons, King Charlie's spaniels, or other as useless curs he may meet on the road; but the harness-horse has often the head and sometimes the tails of a whole family entrusted to him, so he can make wholesale work of it if he sets to, as an old fat aunt of mine did when she sat down.

I had a hen hatching some pheasant eggs for me, and I had put some of the hatched in flannel on a library chair beside the fire: in comes aunty, and down she plumps on the chair with a swash, such as I have heard and seen a boat make when lowered from a vessel's side. Though not a man of hasty temper, candour makes me confess I rapped out an oath against the offending part that she never forgot or forgave. She got up as quick as the tight fit would let her, and came out like a cork from a bottle. Expecting the next time she came she would seek the easy chair, I determined to make it a little more easy for her especial gratification, so I stuck a sharpened knitting needle in the cushion. She came again, but, confound her! she would not go near the trap,

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so my needle stood harmless. If she had sat down on it, I could have found it in my heart to have clinched it, and kept her there for ever as a hecatomb to the departed spirits of my murdered pheasants!

In educating horses for draught, the great thing to teach them is not to be alarmed at objects behind them their being thus alarmed is the cause of more accidents in harness than any other circumstance likely to arise with horses devoted to such purposes. The colt should therefore, long before he is intended to be put to any vehicle, be accustomed to wear harness, and to be exercised with trappings hanging about his hocks and heels. A horse that has never

felt a rein under his tail will probably kick the first time he feels one there. It may be said such an accident does not often occur with a good coachman : granted; but with a bad one it is a matter of frequent occurrence; and though we may say a bad coachman has no business driving, still, as such will drive, broken bones and a smashed carriage is too severe a penalty to allow them to pay for their imprudence if we can avoid it.

In putting a young one first in harness, it is most desirable to prevent anything touching his hocks or hind parts lest we might set him kicking. Why is this precaution so necessary? Because the colt has not been properly prepared: if he had, he would no more mind anything touching his hind parts than his fore ones. Some persons may say, "we have gone on very well for centuries with horses broken to harness in the usual way." Such persons invariably dislike any innovation on an old custom; but in answer to the going on "very well" I must be permitted to remark, that we have certainly "gone on," whether "very well"

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is another affair: but, supposing we really have gone on very well, is that any reason we should not try to go on better? Our forefathers thought we got on very well when they, as mine always did, contrived to actually get to Demezié's at Hartford Bridge to sleep, but to attempt the remaining twenty-five miles home the same day never entered their contemplation. We of 1830 thought we went on very well in doing ten miles an hour; but now we call twenty-five slow travelling. We now get home from New York in little more than a fortnight: depend on it we shall not stop at this: so going on very well is, like most things, but comparative at best. "Let well enough alone" is an old and homely adage; a safe one I admit to a certain extent, but not one calculated to improve our pursuits. It may also be urged that thousands of horses are daily going quietly in harness put to their work in the old way. I allow that thousands are going thus quietly, but I must take the liberty of adding, that scores are daily kicking and running away; and I am tempted to infer, from the opinions I have heard of those who have been the unwilling participators in such exhibitions, that once in a man's life has quite satisfied him of their unpleasantry; and indeed many have been found after such occurrences in a state that has precluded them ever giving an opinion on the matter. Horses going quietly while all is going on right, is something like railroad carriages going fifty miles an hour: so long as they keep on the line and nothing breaks or strains, they go as safely at that pace as at twenty: but if something does go wrong, GOOD NIGHT! So it is with horses if nothing unusual occurs: even a vicious horse

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will probably go quietly; but if something unusual does occur, where are you then?

I remember, when a boy, my father driving me in the curricle from Guildford to Cobham: in the middle of Payne's Hill the nut that fastened one of the swing bars to the carriage shook out: luckily he had driven these horses some years, and though high-couraged ones, they were perfectly good tempered and used to their work; so no harm happened: but suppose they had been young ones, with only the tuition young ones generally get, is it to be supposed such a horse would have borne a bar banging against his hocks without being frightened, and in all probability starting off and kicking every step? These horses had been so accustomed to feel the pole and splinterbar of a carriage against their quarters in putting to and taking off, that they thought nothing about it; and what horses thus learn from casual events during length of time, I maintain a colt should be taught in a few weeks, by habituating him to it by degrees and gentleness: that is, if he is intended to be put into the generality of men's hands.

I think I hear some very knowing and selfopinionated amateur coachman say, "But why all this caution to guard against the consequences of a contingency that never may occur ?" There can be no possible occasion for it certainly, I should reply, if only you or I were in the case; because, excuse my being personal, it might not matter to any one whether our necks were broken or not: but if a man's wife, child, or children are brought home only once in his life, killed, maimed, or senseless, I think the question is answered. It matters little that they have been drawn or carried safely for a thousand days, if

on the thousand and first they are immolated by a half-educated horse.

I have in another place stated that I have by choice driven at times determined kickers. I did not show my sense in doing this; but why I drove them by choice was not certainly because they were kickers, but because they were horses or mares of extraordinary capabilities, and were driven in vehicles adapted to such customers, and fastened down and held by tackle, they could not break, and then no valuable lives were risked behind them: but even with this, the folly or foolhardiness of one man is not to be brought forward as an example to others.

I remember once overtaking Probyn (well known as Captain Probyn in the Driving World) on the Hounslow road with a mare in a Stanhope. "For God's sake," cried he, seeing me, "don't come near us, or she will kick like thunder." This was all very well for Probyn; but give such a mare into the hands of a man who was not a coachman, who would have let a rein touch her loins, where would he be? True, this was a kicker; but unless a good-tempered horse is taught to bear the ordinary casualties that are likely to occur in harness, the probability is, fear, if not temper, may show that he can kick too.

For some proof of what little trouble it takes to accustom young horses to bear anything that does not absolutely put them to pain, let any man notice cart-colts. Now these, unwieldy as they may look, can, when they please, show an activity and quickness of motion that would surprise persons unaccustomed to observe them. Often have I seen carthorses take a high gate when hounds have run by. Few horses are more playful than cart-colts when in