"
With such impressions in favour of the horse, we have ever felt a deep
anxiety about those to whom his conduct and comfort are confided.
The breeder--we envy.
The breaker--we pity.
The owner--we esteem.
The groom--we respect.
AND
The ostler--we pay.
Do not suppose that we wish to cast a slur upon the latter personage, but
it is too much to require that he who keeps a caravansera should look upon
every wayfarer as a brother. It is thus with the ostler: _his_ feelings
are never allowed to twine
"Around one object, till he feels his heart
Of its sweet being form a deathless part."
No--to rub them down, give them a quartern and three pen'orth, and not too
much water, are all that he has to connect him with the offspring of
Childers, Eclipse, or Pot-8-o's; ergo, we pay him.
My friend Tom is a fine specimen of the genus. He is about fifteen hands
high, rising thirty, herring-bowelled, small head, large ears, close mane,
broad chest, and legs a la parentheses ( ). His dress is a long
brown-holland jacket, covering the protuberance known in Bavaria by the
name of _pudo_, and in England by that of _bustle_. His breeches are of
cord about an inch in width, and of such capacious dimensions, that a
truss of hay, or a quarter of oats, might be stowed away in them with
perfect convenience: not that we mean to insinuate they are ever thus
employed, for when we have seen them, they have been in a collapsed state,
hanging (like the skin of an elephant) in graceful festoons about the
mid-person of the wearer.
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