possesses, brings out the lowest abuse distilled from his lips about a thousand above proof, and he stands confessed the ruffian, the bully, and the blackguard. Now, as the great part of the principals in these sort of advertisements are composed of such fellows, it is no matter of surprise that so many are victimised by them, and that those who are not should not wish to contaminate their name by bringing them to account, and thus they escape.

Major, on coming, desires one of the horses to be brought to him at Long's, Miller's, Mivart's, or some other hotel that in ordinary cases stamps Aristocracy on its patrons. This further shows he has authority to act. He does not notice the strangers but by a distant bow, and this he makes like a gentleman. On your mentioning your object in coming, his quick eye has scanned you well while he was issuing his orders, and he then regrets his poor friend's state of health, speaks of her horses as all that can be desired in horses; and if he sees this take, he will tell you you are welcome to see this or that horse or horses at the door. If he does, take it as no compliment, for depend upon it he would not volunteer the thing unless he fancied that he saw a something about you that induces him to think you will never electrify the world by your maiden speech in Parliament-in short, he does not consider you la huitième merveille du monde.

As myself and my reader are now supposed to be the persons looking at these horses, we will not allow that Major did offer to show them out, but that we requested it might be done. So far as I am concerned, I trust that neither my manner nor appearance have induced him to think me quite a rogue or quite a fool. My reader I am sure he considers beyond suspicion;

(6 A BEGGARLY ACCOUNT OF EMPTY BOXES." 333 but I do hope and believe he sees a something about us that leads him to fear the thing WON'T DO.

Now, while my reader is playing with the Major by seeing a horse out (for in our case the play is in our hands), I will just reconnoitre a little, and first take a peep into the corn-bin. I will bet a "pony" I find a few oats in a sack: right; it is so; and a few cobwebs in the corner of the bin-very unlike horses having stood here the last two years! Any signs of carriages having been here lately? No: no recent signs of occupation. - Harness? no; but there is half a truss of hay. In the stable is one saddle, a good one, and a bridle for the Major, or any one wishing to try a horse, and another for the Major to accompany the Gentleman, besides a side-saddle, to show the mare had been used to carry a lady. The make of the latter shows me, or rather awakes my suspicions, that no woman of fortune would use it, and that consequently the beautiful dark brown mare never carried it. As a guide to this, I take the liberty of looking at the pannel, when (the Major was not awake here) I find chestnut hairs on it.

Quite satisfied, I shall now join my reader, who I find enjoying the Major's distrustful appreciation of him, and his fear that the hoaxer in this case is the party hoaxed. I now cast an eye on the beautiful Lady's mare, and no great judgment is probably required to cast an eye on the whereabouts the screw is loose. Major perceives at once the game is up, and says, "Perhaps, Gentlemen, you have seen enough of the mare." As far as our powers in the laconic avail us, we jointly call them up for his service, and the Quite enough, Major," is quite enough for him. He

334 แ HE COMES, HE GOES, LIKE THE SIMOOM."

finds that for this turn he is, as he would say, down upon his luck; and now "vamos por Dios," cry I, or perhaps this Don may give us a few "vivas" of the wrong sort.

I have now given my reader positive proof of a system of which I had only before apprised him by words. I trust he will be very careful (from what he has seen) how he ever attends to such horse advertisements, and that when he does (or if he does), he has got a few hints that may be useful to him. In return, I only beg his best indulgence for my humble efforts to interest him in what I may in future submit to his perusal.

We will conclude that Major is not always so truly unfortunate in his customers as he was in our case, but that he finds some one to buy either the valuable mare or one of the greys. What then? In a day or two the purchaser of course finds out the secret, or is told of it; and as he is minus some seventy or eighty pounds, he seeks Major for a restitution of it: he finds the stables, no doubt, but all he can learn of Major is, "they wish they may get him," for he left without paying for the hire of them. But if it is supposed that he has for one moment balanced in his mind the separate advantages of an emigration to North Canada, the United States, New Zealand, or Australia, it is doing him great injustice: the Major is no recreant, not he. If the purchaser will only have patience for a week or so, I dare say, I can put him on his drag; but even then, he has so many wellknown earths open, it would be difficult to run in to him and suppose one did, fingers worse bitten would be the only result: but if the finding him is really

:

OCH, MURPHY DELANY'S A BROTH OF A BOY." 335

wished, the following will point out our line of country to the "meet."

"To be sold, the property of a Gentleman, the following superior Hunters, that have been regularly hunted with the Kilkenny and Garrison Hounds.-(Mem. a fresh one, as a heading.)

"1. A Bay Gelding, by Napoleon, dam by Ivanhoe; equal to great weight.

"2. A Grey Gelding (Mem. the Grey Gelding now a hunter), by Freney, dam by Master Robert; remarkably handsome, and a splendid fencer.

"3. A Brown Mare (our old friend), by Blacklock, dam by Welcome. This mare, from her magnificent fencing and racing speed, would make a tip-top steeple-chaser.

-

"4. One of the best 16-stone covert hacks in this kingdom. -(Mem. Cobby.)

"The above are all sound, and the owner can be treated with. To be seen at his stables, Red Lion Yard, (some) Street, Bloomsbury:"-or, perhaps, Golden Square, for such places are some of the haunts of these advertising gentlemen.

Tallyho! Go hark together! hark together! hark! that's it! the hunted fox for a thousand! "Oh, the top of the morning to you, Major," for it's him sure enough, but now plain Mr. O'Reilly, with just a teste of the brogue and lots of the blarney. Faith, Major, you do it iligant! But now, having found him-cui bono? You could get nothing from him but his skin, and that you are not allowed to take. He will prove these horses are not his, so all you could do would be to send or get him sent to prison-mind, you paying for the gratification of so doing, IF you can do it. The gratification, however, at best would be but small, and his chagrin would be also small: he would be quite at home there, and get indulgences that some

poor fellow, sent there for purloining a loaf for a famishing family, would not have money or interest with the worthy functionaries in charge of him to obtain.

But let any sensible man look at this advertisement, and reflect a moment, he may save himself the trouble of going: the incongruity of the thing must strike him. Is it likely a gentleman who had been hunting with the Kilkenny and Garrison Hounds would bring horses from where they were known to London, where they are not? The members of those Hunts, and the gentlemen who hunt with them, must have changed their nature very much from what they ever have been, if they let really good hunters escape them. Then, of all places, Bloomsbury! If I wanted an attorney-GOD forbid one should want me!—I might look there for him: or, if I wished to find a piano or dancing master (a cheap one), hot rolls, or (now) hot potatoes, I might go to the purlieus about Golden Square for them! but for a hunter, I should as soon look for a zebra at Almack's. Yet people do go! Well, it's all the same to me whether they go or not but they will not find it all the same to them.

We have seen quite enough of these sort of gentry; but really the ramifications from their genealogical stem are so varied and extensive, that I really believe all the honest men in England could stand under the shade of one of these noble denizens of their forest; and here comes a collateral branch.

This is one of those meddling sort of gentlemen to be found in London, and particularly in every provincial town in England where the horse trade is carried on extensively enough to make it worth their residence. We will call this gentleman Mr.