Stable Hartshorn — How to Manage a Horse on a Journey — Your Best Friend

Of one thing I am certain, that the reader must be much delighted with the wholesome¹ smell of the stable, with which many of these pages are redolent; what a contrast to the sickly odours exhaled² from those of some of my contemporaries, especially of those who pretend to be of the highly fashionable class, and who treat of reception-rooms, well may they be styled so, in which dukes, duchesses, earls, countesses, archbishops, bishops³, mayors, mayoresses — not forgetting the writers themselves, both male and female — congregate⁴ and press upon one another; how cheering, how refreshing⁵, after having been nearly knocked down with such an atmosphere, to come in contact with genuine stable hartshorn. Oh! the reader shall have yet more of the stable, and of that old ostler, for which he or she will doubtless exclaim, ‘Much obliged!’— and lest I should forget to perform my promise, the reader shall have it now.

I shall never forget an harangue⁶ from the mouth of the old man, which I listened to one warm evening as he and I sat on the threshold of the stable, after having attended to some of the wants of a batch⁷ of coach-horses. It related to the manner in which a gentleman should take care of his horse and self, whilst engaged in a journey on horseback, and was addressed to myself, on the supposition of my one day coming to an estate, and of course becoming a gentleman.

‘When you are a gentleman,’ said he, ‘should you ever wish to take a journey on a horse of your own, and you could not have a much better than the one you have here eating its fill in the box yonder — I wonder by-the-by, how you ever came by it — you can’t do better than follow the advice I am about to give you, both with respect to your animal and yourself. Before you start, merely give your horse a couple of handfuls of corn, and a little water, somewhat under a quart, and if you drink a

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