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A Scotch paper describes a curious case of horse management, and though the same treatment has been equally successful in other instances we are inclined to believe the true secret lies partly in gentling the animal while the preparations are being made. The fact related is curious and may be useful, so we reproduce it:

“On Saturday last a groom, mounted on a high mettled hunter, entered the High street of Coldstream, and, when opposite Sir John Majoribank’s monument, the horse began to plunge and rear to a fearful extent, swerving to the right and then to the left, but go forward he would not, nor could all the exertions of the groom overcome his obstinacy. The street was filled with people expecting to see the animal destroy himself on the spikes of the iron railing around the monument, when Mr. McDougal, saddler, walked up to the groom, and said: ‘I think, my man, you are not taking the proper method to make the horse go; allow me to show you a trick worth knowing.’ ‘Well,’ says the groom, ‘if you can make him go, it’s more than I can;’ when Mr. McDougal took a piece of whipcord, which he tied with a firm knot on the end of the animal’s ear, which he bent gently down, fastening the end of the string to the check buckle of the bridle, which done, he patted the horse’s neck once or twice, and said, ‘Now, let me see you go quietly home like a good horse,’ and, astonishing to relate, it moved off as gently as if nothing had happened. Mr. McDougal says he has seen, in London, horses which no manner of force could make go, while this mild treatment was always successful.”

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