the newspapers that they are becoming every day more desperate.
Take away the license from their public-houses, cut down the rookeries
and shadowy old avenues in which they are fond of lying in wait, in order
to sally out upon people as they pass in the roads; but, above all,
establish a good mounted police to ride after the ruffians and drag them
by the scruff of the neck to the next clink, where they might lie till
they could be properly dealt with by law; instead of which, the
Government are repealing the wise old laws enacted against such
characters, giving fresh licenses every day to their public-houses, and
saying that it would be a pity to cut down their rookeries and thickets
because they look so very picturesque; and, in fact, giving them all kind
of encouragement; why, if such behaviour is not enough to drive an honest
man mad, I know not what is. It is of no use talking, I only wish the
power were in my hands, and if I did not make short work of them, might I
be a mere jackass postillion all the remainder of my life."

Besides acquiring from the ancient ostler a great deal of curious
information respecting the ways and habits of the heroes of the road,
with whom he had come in contact in the early portion of his life, I
picked up from him many excellent hints relating to the art of grooming
horses. Whilst at the inn, I frequently groomed the stage and
post-horses, and those driven up by travellers in their gigs: I was not
compelled, nor indeed expected, to do so; but I took pleasure in the
occupation; and I remember at that period one of the principal objects of
my ambition was to be a first-rate groom, and to make the skins of the
creatures I took in hand look sleek and glossy like those of moles. I
have said that I derived valuable hints from the old man, and, indeed,
became a very tolerable groom, but there was a certain finishing touch
which I could never learn from him, though he possessed it himself, and
which I could never attain to by my own endeavours; though my want of
success certainly did not proceed from want of application, for I have
rubbed the horses down, purring and buzzing all the time, after the
genuine ostler fashion, until the perspiration fell in heavy drops upon
my shoes, and when I had done my best and asked the old fellow what he
thought of my work, I could never extract from him more than a kind of
grunt, which might be translated, "Not so very bad, but I have seen a
horse groome