for if the Eastern-bred horse only carried a postage-stamp the result would be much about the same.  Minting could carry fourteen stone across a country, while, if we come to mere speed, there is really no knowing what horses like Ormonde, Energy, Prince Charlie, and others might have done had they been pressed.  If the Emir of Hail were to bring over fifty of his best mares, the Newmarket trainers could pick out fifty fillies from among their second-rate animals, and the worst of the fillies could distance the best of the Arabs on any terms; while, if fifty heats were run off, over any courses from half a mile to four miles, the English horses would not lose one.  The champion Arab of the world was matched against one of the worst thoroughbreds in training; the English “plater” carried about five stone more than the pride of the East, and won by a quarter of a mile.

Unconsciously, the breeders of racers have been evolving for us the swiftest, strongest, and most courageous horse known to the world, and we cannot afford to neglect that consideration, for people will not strive after perfection unless perfection brings profit.

Again, we hear occasionally a good deal of outcry about the great noblemen and gentlemen who keep up expensive studs, and the assumption is that racehorses and immorality go together; but what would the critics have the racing nobleman do?  He is born into a strange artificial society; his fate is ready-made for him; he inherits luxuries and pastimes as he inherits land and trees.  Say that the stud is a useless luxury:  but then, what about the daubs for which plutocrats pay thousands of guineas?  A picture costs, let us say, 2,000 guineas; it is the slovenly work of a hurried master, and the guineas are paid for a name; it is stuck away in a private gallery, and, if its owner looks at it so often as once a week, it costs him L2 per peep—­reckoning only the interest on the money sunk.  Is that useless luxury?  The fact is that we are living in a sort of guarded hothouse; our barbarian propensities cannot have an easy outlet; and luxury of all sorts tends to lull our barbarian energy.  If we blame one man for indulging a costly hobby, we must blame almost every man and woman who belongs to the grades above the lower middle-class.  A rich trader who spends L5,000 a year on orchid-houses cannot very well afford to reprove a man who pays 50s. per week for each of a dozen horses in training.  Rich folk, whose wealth has been fostered during the long security of England, will indulge in superfluities, and no one can stop them.  A country gentleman who succeeds to a deer park cannot slaughter all the useless, pretty creatures merely because they are useless:  he is bound by a thousand traditions, and he cannot suddenly break away.  A nobleman inherits a colossal income, of which he cannot very well rid himself:  he follows the traditions of his family or his class, and employs part of his profuse surplus riches in maintaining