The Sporting Dictionary, and Rural Repository, Volume 1 (of 2) / Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the Field

by William Taplin

GROOM

—is the appellation by which a person is known who is a complete and perfect master of every part of stable discipline; if he is not so, it is a prostitution of the word to admit the term; and in any other point of view, he can rank in no other degree than a common stable-boy. The qualifications necessary to form A GROOM of superior excellence, are almost as numerous and distinguishing as those admitted to be requisite for the formation of a MINISTER of STATE: obedience, fidelity, patience, mildness, diligence, humanity, and honesty, are equally indispensible; without the whole of which, he may be entitled to the denomination of a strapper in a stable-yard; but will never prove worthy to be thought A GROOM.

If a groom is judicious, honest, and industrious, intending DUTY to his MASTER, and justice to himself, he will never be prevailed upon to undertake more than he can perform: the MASTER who wishes it, will always be instrumental to his own deception and disappointment. Those who expect GROOMS to dress hair, as well as their horses; or to leave the latter wet and dirty, or half dressed, in the stable, while they dance attendance at the back of the chair, during the hour of dining, must be content to see their horses in equal condition with those of the DANCING, MUSIC, and DRAWING MASTERS, so frequently seen, in all weathers, standing the disconsolate hour, at different doors, in almost every respectable street of the Metropolis.

The department in which A GROOM is placed, if the stud is valuable, must always be considered an office of very considerable trust; where great confidence is placed on ONE SIDE, and strict integrity should be observed on THE OTHER. It is upon the sobriety, steadiness, and invariable punctuality, of the groom, that the HEALTH, SAFETY, and CONDITION, of every horse depends; and by his incessant attention only can they be insured. Grooms (at least those completely qualified to be termed so) are men who, from the arduous talk they stand engaged in, the variegated nature of their servitude, and the property entrusted to their care, lay claim, and are entitled to, (their sobriety, steadiness, fidelity, and punctuality, once established,) all the equitable pecuniary compensation, and personal kindness, their employers can possibly bestow.

Grooms and coachmen, deprived of free agency by their situation in life, and doomed to eat the bread of DEPENDENCE, exist to act solely upon compulsion; they receive (sometimes the most supercilious) injunctions only to obey, and are not permitted the privilege of either remonstrance or expostulation. Tacitly submissive, they encounter the severity of the elements at all hours, and in all seasons; and what should more influence the reflecting mind in their favor, is, that when the inclemency of the weather compels the RICH and OPULENT to take shelter under the ROOF of HOSPITALITY, servants must bear the "pelting of the pitiless storm" unprotected; and when a satiety of pleasure drives the reluctant frame of their superiors to the downy pillow of nocturnal relief, their task as yet "is but half performed," and not unfrequently, till the broad sun serves only to remind them of a speedy renewal of their daily labour.

These observations are impartially introduced, to demonstrate their utility in the great scale of OPULENT SOCIETY, as well as to bring home to the reflection of the illiberal and penurious, palpable conviction how highly they stand entitled (upon many particular occasions, and distressing emergencies) to their salutary tenderness and kind consideration. It should be always held in remembrance by SUPERIORS, that the services are reciprocal; and that, in strict truth and candour, the obligation is no greater on one side than the other. Gratitude and AFFECTION is much more likely (in a good soil) to be excited by kindness than severity; and instances are very rare of a SERVANT'S fidelity having been obtained, or preserved, by the unkind treatment, or unjust rigidity, of the MASTER.

Grooms of a certain description are, in general, too much disposed to a degree of self-consequence, and studiously endeavour to obtain an ASCENDANCY in the stabularian department, to which, if the master imprudently and pusillanimously submits, he becomes in some degree a non-entity, and bids adieu to every particle of power upon his own premises. The groom once possessed of this power, and conscious of the ground he stands upon, becomes so confident of his own imaginary superiority, that the master is little more than an instrument of mere passive convenience; barely permitted to think, hardly presuming TO SPEAK, or, in fact, daring to obtrude an OPINION even where his own horses, their health, and safety, are concerned. Grooms, so long as they continue to execute the trust reposed in them with fidelity, that is, with care, kindness, punctuality, and attention to their HORSES, and a dutiful attachment to their employers, will ever find themselves respected; but when, from a false, ridiculous, and ill-founded confidence, they exceed the bounds of consistency, and go beyond their own sphere, in an affected knowledge of the PROPERTY of MEDICINE, QUACKING their masters' HORSES, and becoming self-coined Veterinarians, they, in the eye of every judicious observer, abandon their own merits, and render themselves objects of both pity and contempt.

This affectation of MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE is so very prevalent with stabularian gentlemen, that they support it with a great degree of irritable tenacity; and would sooner have even their HONESTY, than their medical ability called in question. To stem the torrent of this dangerous practice, should be the first principle, and persevering determination, of every GENTLEMAN, who expects to see his HORSES in good CONDITION, and his servants in a state of uniformity: and if he wishes to shield himself from mental disquietude, and his horses from perpetual persecution, he will lay a serious injunction, that no medicine, or nostrum, whatever, shall be administered to any horse or horses under the GROOM'S care, without the MASTER'S acquiescence first had and obtained.

If GENTLEMEN will condescend to give the subject a trifling consideration, they will instantly perceive, that the symptoms of disease, the state of the body, the languor or velocity of the circulation, and the property of the blood itself, must require a greater degree of SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION, than people of this description have the power of going into; from which palpable fact may be inferred, the sole reason why they so often miscarry in their experiments, and so frequently render that a matter of permanent difficulty, which, properly treated, would have proved no more than a mere temporary inconvenience.

Grooms (as well as Coachmen) should have it strongly impressed on their memory, and never lose sight of the reflection, that by a slight, or almost momentary, deviation from the line of rectitude, in either error, inattention, inadvertence, or neglect, injuries may be sustained that neither months or money can repair. Their minds should be always alive to the interest of their employers; they should, in all seasons (but more particularly in the colder months) have it in perpetual recollection, that COLDS are sooner caught than cured; that SWELLED LEGS, and CRACKED HEELS, are much easier obtained than obliterated; that LAMENESS (either by accident or indiscretion) is easier got than gotten rid of; and that bad eyes are much more frequently the effect of a careless or a malicious blow, than of "humours," to which they are upon all occasions so industriously attributed.

Colds and COUGHS are suddenly acquired, and by means at the time but little thought of, till the event first prompts, and then reproaches retrospection. A horse in fine condition, standing in a warm and comfortable stable when at home, is always liable to inconvenience abroad; accidentally exposed to a long, wet, and dirty journey, or a severe chase in sharp winds and unfavourable weather, with a cold and comfortless stable after either, he insures it almost to a certainty, without incessant care and unremitting circumspection. A horse after one or the other, should never be left one minute without the precaution of substantial and unwearied wisping, so long as a wet or damp hair is to be found about him. He should never be permitted to stand still in rain, even with HOUNDS, so great is the danger of throwing the perspirative matter suddenly upon the CIRCULATION; thereby constituting a sizey viscidity of the BLOOD, and laying the foundation of various diseases.

Horses kept in good style, should never have their customary cloathing reduced, but with the strictest care and attention: the internal air of a stable should be regulated, and its temperature equally preserved entirely by the state of the season, (or, in other words, by the SEASON of the YEAR;) and external air should never be additionally admitted in cold and chilling winds, but with the greatest circumspection; as it is to be remembered, it is not the admission of such air in itself alone, by which the injury is sustained, but by the contrast it constitutes, when opposed to the previous warmth of the stable.