A WELL-TRAINED HORSE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1529, 11 April 1887, Page 4

A WELL-TRAINED HORSE

Horses can be trained to do almost anything, and there are instances on reoord where they have been trained to assist m highway robbery . In the year 1750 a Scottish lawyer made a trip to London. The lawyer, when about to return, went to Smithfield, then a famous horse market, and purchased a handßome animal at so low a price tbat he immediately suspected that there was some defect or blemish. But when the hor_e wbb put to his paces he behaved bo well that the lawyer congratulated himself on having obtained co good a beast at so low a figure. When he rt ached Flnley Common, then a noted Bpot for highwaymen, he met m a hollow which lay between two slight ascents a clerlcal-lcoking gentleman driving to town m a one-horae chelae. The road was solitary, not a creature m sight, when the lawyer's horse astonished its rider by making a sudden manoeuvre by which he brought his hind quarters close to the ohaise and so stopped it, proving at once what the profeesion of hiß former owner had been, as well as his own complicity m the highwayman's art. The clergyman, believing of a certainty that a robber as well as his horse was at hand, produoed his purse at onoe, assuring the astonished lawyer that it was quite unnecessary to use violence, sb he would ofler no resistance. - The lawyer spurred up bis horse, and with many apologies to the terrified clergyman prooeeded on his journey. Very shortly afterwards he met a stage coaoh, and the horse by tbe . ame manoeuvre brought it to a stand. The poor lawyer was looked upon as a high* wayman, a blunderbusß was aim. d at his head, and he was threatened with death by the passengers. In short, whenever opportunity for robbing occurred, and after the lawyer's life had been repeatedly endangered by tbe suspicions which the conduct of his horse naturally gave rise to, and bis liberty threatened by the peace officers, who were about to take him up as a notorions highwayman to whom, of a truth the horse had formerly belonged, the lawyer was obliged to part with him for* a trifle, and to per* chase at a high cost one which though far less beautiful, had not been trained m those oriminal habits m which the other had become an expert adept.—-" New Orleans Picayune. "