The groom is not entirely to blame. The fault resides with his superiors, whom the servant apes. The sin rests with those who (unable to keep a stud-groom) think their duty is discharged by a daily scamper through the stable before they go to business; with those who by their manners corrupt the groom's simplicity, while by a strange costume they induce the ignorant fellow to regard the badge of his disgrace as the upholder of his pride. To the upper classes, the shortcomings of stable men cling; with the superiors, whose example should instruct, rests the real blame of the servant. With educated men abide the errors of the ignorant. After a scalding drench, an unusual redness declares the state of the mouth; a quantity of saliva flows from the restless lips, which are constantly in motion; they are being moved perpetually up and down, and are always parting with a smack. The food, for a time, is rejected, but good gruel, if cold, is generally taken freely. Boiled roots should constitute the nourishment for two months afterward, the mouth being all the while washed with the application recommended for aphtha. [Illustration: SCALD MOUTH.] No immediate danger is to be apprehended from scald mouth. The stomach is more disposed to assume chronic than acute disease. Probably the temporary services of the animal might well be dispensed with, and much might be gained by an extra months' continuance of the prepared food. At all events, the experiment would be intended to ward off a possible evil; and, if we are to believe at all the motive, being based on goodness, the act would not be without its reward. CHAPTER IV. THE NOSTRILS--THEIR ACCIDENTS AND THEIR DISEASES. COLD. It should not excite surprise if the horse, though generally strong, and exposed to every abuse, is occasionally subject to the disease which, in man, is almost the property of the delicately nurtured. The animal exists in a stable commonly kept at a high temperature by means of contaminated air; it is taken thence into a wintry atmosphere to stand for an uncertain period before the master's door. There it has to remain inactive, shivering in the blast, until it suits the proprietor's convenience to come forth; next, it is pushed along till the perspiration bedews the sides. Then it has to remain, generally unprotected, in the cold until some business is transacted, when it is flurried home again, and often has to wait afterward till it suits the groom's leisure to dry the reeking frame. [Illustration: SELLING "A CAPTAIN," AS ANY HORSE WITH A NASAL DISCHARGE IS CALLED BY THE LOW DEALERS.]