philosophical principles, within the last fifty or sixty years, although something yet remains to be done. This improvement has been effected gradually, and chiefly through the recommendation and instructions of sporting gentlemen to the train

ers.

Sir Charles Bunbury has dis tinguished himself beyond all other gentlemen of the turf, for moderate elothing, physic, and exercise, in which hitherto, I believe, he has found few to act up to his rational example. The old jockies, slight ing the moderate and rational prac tice of Baret, perhaps, indeed, entirely ignorant of it, his book not circulating, I conceive, much be yond his own time, were in the habits of training the horse under a system of the most laborions and rigid discipline, and their treatment of him in the race, was equally severe; in more appropriate terms; unfeeling and barbarous. The northern jockies were particularly remarked for their butcherly use of the whip and spur, indeed for the eustomary and needless application of those tortures, as it were out of mere flash and bravado. Long and distressing races, and mortal proofs of the endurance and courage of the patient and all-suffering horse, who never stops to remonstrate or complain, but rushes on boldly to the gates of death, at the command of his tyrant, are happily rare and unfashionable in our milder times, although so much the disgrace of those of our fore fathers. Short distances in the racé, are more adopted than for merly, and the plan has an interest in its convenience as well as huma nity; yet four-mile racés need at no rate to be proscribed, since they are within the bounds of the horse's ability, and the acknowledged regular test of his permanent good

ness. Training is also less severe; as has been observed, the weight of clothes is not so oppressive, nor are the sweats so frequent, long, and debilitating; a branch of diseipline which used annually to break down such numbers of race horses. The purging system deither is carried to the excess of former times, when, in the language of Bracken, the body of the horse was physicked until it was as dry as a kiln stick. One in fact never ceases to wonder, in looking over those copious formula, how either the human patients or the horses, preserved themselves from being turned inside out by such thum dering doses. Indeed it must be lamented, that too many of our trainers have yet a strong prejudice in favour of the good old customs and practices of former days, and many a colt that has shewn great substance previously, shall, before he has been three months in their hands, assume the true greyhound form, and make a good figure to draw through a ring. These men are too entirely absorbed in the ideas of wind and condition, to bave any room for the reflection, that a too great loss of substance must be a diminution of both strength and speed.

the riding school: He remarks, in "the second Booke of the Practicke Part" of his work

"When they are thus trayned (improperly) their body is neuer knit firme and round, whereby they can have no sleight in the carriage thereof, for if he be a long sided horse, he may take a large stroke at the first, so long as he has strength, but when that fayleth, he cannot be able to bring his hinder parts after roundly, through which he gathereth so slowly and runneth with such paine, that a round running horse, though he take a shorter stroake, if he run nimbly, will beate him out of the field as for example,

"If two horses be to runne a course of four miles, and one of them striketh 23 feete, and the other but 20 feete, yet in regard he that striketh but 20 feete, taketh 6 stroakes, against the others 5 stroakes; he striking 6 times against the others 5, will strike 120 feete against the others 115. Now there being 1760 yards in a mile, there must needs be 7040 yards in 4 miles, and so, 21,120 feete, in which distance running, he loosing 5 feete in 120, will loose 880 feet in 4 miles, which you shall prouve by multiplying, &c. &c."

On speed and stoutness, he reasons and calculates as follows "I will now prove my former assertion, that a horse which runneth hot at hand, but will not hold it, cannot be truely said to be of such speed, as another horse that is not altogether so speedy at the first, but yet durable.

For instance, take a number as 20, and divide it first into two equall parts, as 10 and 10, and let that bee supposed the tough or whole running horse; then take the same number againe, and deVOL. XLVI.-No. 276.

uide into two vnequall parts, as 15 and 5, and let that he imagined the hot running horse: Now multiply 10 by 10, and the product will be 100; then multiply 15 by 5, and that product will arise but to 75, and yet you see that 15 and 5 added together, maketh 20, as well as 10 and 10 maketh 20, although the product of that is not so great as the product of this, by 25. And the reason is, that the difference of the excesse from 10, which is the meane (being 5), is not multiplyed equally in itselfe : for 5 being the multiplyer, multiply 10 by 5, and it yieldeth 50; and multiply 5 by 5, because it is the excesse, and it produceth 25, which being added to 50, maketh 75 as afore; but multiply 5 againe by itself, and it bringeth 25 more, which, being added to 75, maketh 100, answerable to the product of 10 and 10: so that you see, though 15 is more than 10, and hath the vantage at the first, yet 5 is lesse than the other 10, by the square of 5, which is the excesse, and so looseth that advantage by the quantity of the square of the excesse, as is demonstrated.

"Euen so, the whole running horse (though not altogether so speedy at the first) holdeth his speed from the first to the last, whereby there is no losse but produceth to the best advantage, as it doth being multiplyed in itselfe; but the unequall or false running horse, although he have the aduantage at the first, as 15 hath of 10, to the outward sense, and so may hold it halfe the course, nay, it may be as to 75, yet by reason that his running tended not to the meane, bnt to the excesse, hee will loose that aduantage at the latter end, in as much as he hath a lesse proportion of strength and winde K k

to

tions of speed and power of conti. nuance, or stoutuess, must always exist. Nor is it correct that

pull a horse from his speed."

A BIT OF A JOCKEY.

Joined to the last calculation, is a marginal reference to the 4th Book of Euclid, for Baret's head was equally well furnished with mathematical as with classical lore. His book indeed appears too learned and too theoretical for general circulation, and many of his theoretical positions will probably fail on actual experience. For example, is there any possible management in breaking or training, which can convert a loose and over-striding racer into a quick and round goer, as Baret seems to flatter himself, by virtue of his system? The truth is, I apprehend, that there is no remedy at all in the case to be expected from management of the paces in breaking; for were we to attempt to shorten the stride of a colt of such form of going, we should detract from his speed, in degree, as the same effect results from the management of the riding school. The whole of the practicable remedy lies in the hands of the jockey, who must do his utmost to keep such a horse within himself; a case, in which, most assuredly, Chifney himself would not have recommended or used, the slack rein. With respect to the calculation on speed and stoutness, however arithmetically accurate or mathematically true, it is still a matter of mere curiosity, for, after all, as was lately proved in your pages, the natural distinc

THE LEVARIAN HORSESHOE.

To the Editor of the Sporting Magazine. SIR,

ANOTHER new novelty having

started up in your columns in the shape of a horse-shoe, which, notwithstanding the enquiries of IGNORAMUS and Veterinary Sur. geons, young and old, yet remains a sort of non-descript, conjecture is on the tip-toe, and if you can spare room for a few observations, be pleased to insert the following, as they occurred to me on reading the letters of your correspondents.

How the heels of this shoe are formed so as to leave the heels of the horse free enough from pressure, to enable him to work while suffering under those terrible diseases corns and sandcracks, and without the application of the barshoe, it is not easy to surmise, and I

had set the business down-altogether as a kind of hoax, merely intended to furnish chit-chat for amateurs in horses, and others who peruse your pages merely to lighten toil, or for the idle pour passer le tems. Seeing, however, that your last correspondent has come nearer the point, by stating this new shve to have been used many years in the stud of a nobleman, and on no less authority than that of his coachman, a respectable servaut, I have been led to examine, among many others, Mr. White's late publication, where, speaking of contraction of the heels, after very

properly

properly animadverting on the great inconveniences of the seated, the bar, and other shoes commonly used, he conjectures a shoe might be applied with nails round the toe, and as far from the heels as the security of the shoe will admit, in which case the motion of the heels will not be impeded, and some part of the quarters also will be unrestrained; "should it be imagined," he adds, "that the pressure of the shoe in the bottom of the foot would prevent the action of the heels and quarters, it is easy to make the upper surface of the shoe slope a little outward in stead of inward, as it commonly does, and then the obstacle would be removed." Is the new shoe, that has been in use for some years in the stud of a nobleman, like unto this or is it not? Mr. White, it is probable, had no practical knowledge of the virtues of the shoe he mentions; if he had, he would certainly have said more than have merely hinted the trial of such an article worth while, when the heels exhibiting a tendency to contract required more liberty than could be dispensed to them by the other shoes.

Shoeing the horse, every one acknowledges to be the most difficult part of farriery; and the coJumns of a publication like your's, can never be more usefully occupied than by rational discussions on this important subject, which, enlightened as the times are that we live in, is far from being well under stood. I remember being induced to trouble you and other editors on this, or a similar subject, years ago, and believe myself then to have allowed the shoe of the College worthy of preference in feet with high firm heels and sound frogs, the latter requiring pressure in a

certain degree to preserve them in health; and the shoe used by Moorcroft in its improved state, as the most proper when the heels, either from nature or abrasion by the roads, &c. are too low, and the frog too tender, to bear the College shoe. I now believe it to be impossible, or nearly so, for the College shoe to be worn on any foot when the labour is severe, on hard roads, and the weather wet; as well as it is for the thick-heeled shoe, which must be substituted in this case, if we are to keep the horse in work at all, to be worn for any length of time without pressing unduly the parts, and producing corns, &c. It is, however, the only sort of shoe we have to depend upon for post horses, and all others in daily use, especially in the winter season.

The word Levarian, as applied to a horse-shoe, if I understand_it rightly, is a sweeping epithet. Its literal signification is giving ease, setting at liberty, freeing from inconvenience, and consequently must combine the virtues of both the College shoe and Moorcroft's, without their inconveniences, when applied to sound or workable feet, as well as supersede the use of the bar-shoe in diseased feet, which it professes to do. If it actually does all this, it will he the very article the public have been so long looking for; but so often have its expectations been deceived, that until the inventor, whoever he be, produce proofs of its excellence, in. credulity must be supposed to influence our decisions, and opinion therefore ought to be withheld. As your columns are open to fair argument, and to diffuse what may lead to improvement in any branch of science connected with the plan of your work, permit me to remain

Kk 2

in

expectation of your allowing a place for a few more cursory observations on the subject, whenever this new shoe shall convince me it is worthy of its name.-I have the honour to be Sir, your most obedient servant, PATRICIUS.

Hertford-street, Mayfair, Sept. 7, 1815.

HANOVER, THE COUNTRY OF CAVALRY-ANECDOTE, &c.

"THIS," says a recent French

traveller, "is really the case, especially in the district of Hoya. The peasants all possess teams of four or six horses, which, for beau ty, vigour, height, and elegance of form, may fairly dispute the palm with a great number of the chariot and riding horses of France. The different stages are well supplied with excellent cattle: that from Welle to Hearburg, which is six leagues and a half, is drawn by four noble animals. The farm horses, which in cases of emergency are at the disposal of the post-masters, frequently excite the admiration of travellers by their extreme beauty. The arms of Hanover and Mecklenburg, bear a borse at full gallop, as well as those of Osnaburg, and several of the neighbouring states, which seems to indicate that Lower Saxony must have been long distinguished for the breed of this noble animal.

The seven years war, the armed neutrality, and the late revolutions, bave not tended to meliorate the condition of the farmer; but as to erossing of breeds tried here, it will, perhaps, astonish some persons to be told, that after repeated trials, no superiority whatever is discern able in the progeny of a Hanoverian mare and a Turkish stallion;

but on the contrary, the most hear tiful race is bred by stallions from mares of the country. They seldom cross the native breed by English hunters: those of the Duchy of Mecklenburg are generally preferred, as being in many respects better suited to the purpose.

"Horses intended for the cavalry are never mounted until they are seven or eight years old, and are supposed to retain their full vigour at twenty-five; but if they are employed when much younger, they are found unfit for service at a very early age.

"On the surrender of the Ha noverian cavalry at Altenberg in 1902, admitted by the best judges to be excellent horses, it was found that the major part of them had lost the mark of mouth. Some very affecting scenes occurred on this occasion, from the attachment of the soldiers to their faithful companions. One very old dragoon, who was reputed as brave a man as any in the regiment, bathed his horse's head with tears, saying, "My poor old friend I am no longer permitted to take care of thee! Thou wilt die without hav ing Hermann by thy side!"

THE BEGGAR'S OPERA.

To the Editor of the Sporting Magazine. SIR,

ALLOW me to express my great

satisfaction at the sentiments of your correspondent, who, in page 224 of your last number so laudably evinces his indignation at the infamous mutilation inflicted on that excellent piece the Beggar's Opera. For many years past some part of it has been omitted, but the finishing stroke was given about two seasons since, when it was

com.