ginning, for want of spurs, I have found the
advantage of carrying one in my sandwich-bag, and buckling it on, if
needed, at a check. Of course, first-rate horsemen need none of these
hints; but I write for novices only, of whom, I trust, every prosperous
year of Old England will produce a plentiful crop from the fortunate and
the sons of the fortunate.

A great many persons in this country learn, or relearn, to ride after
they have reached manhood, either because they can then for the first
time afford the dignity and luxury, or because the doctor prescribes
horse exercise as the only remedy for weak digestion, disordered liver,
trembling nerves--the result of overwork or over-feeding. Thus the
lawyer, overwhelmed with briefs; the artist, maintaining his position as
a Royal Academician; the philosopher, deep in laborious historical
researches; and the young alderman, exhausted by his first year's
apprenticeship to City feeding, come under the hands of the
riding-master.

Now although for the man "to the manner bred," there is no saddle for
hard work and long work, whether in the hunting-field or Indian
campaign, like a broad seated English hunting saddle, there is no doubt
that its smooth slippery surface offers additional difficulties to the
middle-aged, the timid, and those crippled by gout, rheumatism or
pounds. There can be very little benefit derived from horse exercise as
long as the patient travels in mortal fear. Foreigners teach riding on a
buff leather demi-pique saddle,--a bad plan for the young, as the
English saddle becomes a separate difficulty. But to those who merely
aspire to constitutional canters, and who ride only for health, or as a
matter of dignity, I strongly recommend the Somerset saddle, invented
for one of that family of cavaliers who had lost a leg below the knee.
This saddle is padded before the knee and behind the thigh to fit the
seat of the purchaser, and if provided with a stuffed seat of brown
buckskin will give the quartogenarian pupil the comfort and the
confidence of an arm-chair. They are, it may be encouraging to mention,
fashionable among the more aristocratic middle-aged, and the front roll
of stuffing is much used among those who ride and break their own colts,
as it affords a fulcrum against a puller, and a protection against a
kicker. Australians use a rolled blanket, strapped over the pommel of
the saddle, for the same purpose. To bad horsemen who are too conceited
to use