of stationary riding, during which he was evidently very uneasy and oppressed with the weight he carried, unrelieved as he was by any change of position or any locomotion. At the end of the second hour we believe we might have forced him through, as his resistances were now feeble; but as they yet evidently existed, we gave him another half hour of waiting, and then he went through the gate as tractably as any horse could do. We did not let the matter rest here, but rode him fully ten or twelve miles further than we had intended, purposely to give him notice that implicit obedience would be exacted of him in future, on pain of a punishment not at all to his taste. He never afterwards showed the smallest disposition to rebel, although, as we learned subsequently, he had, several times before coming into our possession, been passed from hand to hand in the Rothings of Essex, as utterly incorrigible.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] CHAPTER IV SPEED AND ENDURANCE—CARNIVOROUS HORSES—HORSE FLESH AS FOOD—HORSE BAITING. THE maximum speed of the racehorse appears to be at the rate of a mile in a minute; for few, if any, horses can retain the full velocity of this rate for even that time. A mile has, however, been run at Newmarket by a stop-watch in one minute and four and a half seconds. It is said, but was never proved, that Flying Childers did run at Newmarket one mile in the minute; certain it is that this celebrated horse, when carrying nine stone two pounds ran over the round course, which is three miles six furlongs and ninety-three yards, in six minutes and forty seconds. Bay Melton ran four miles at York, in 1763, in seven minutes forty-three seconds and a half. Eclipse also ran the same distance, on the same course, in eight minutes with twelve stone. The most extraordinary instance on record of the stoutness as well as speed of the racehorse was displayed in 1786, when Mr. Huell’s Quibbler ran twenty-three miles round the flat at Newmarket in fifty-seven minutes and ten seconds. The speed of the greyhound, and that of the hare, is but little inferior to that of the racehorse, but their powers of endurance at their utmost velocity are not equal to his.