STANDARD
—is the name of an instrument by which the exact heighth of a horse is taken (to the eighth of an inch) when engaged to carry weight for inches, or entered to run for a GIVE and TAKE PLATE. The standard is about six feet six inches high, and so constructed with a line and pendulum, in the centre of a circle, that no mismeasurement, by fraud or imposition, can take place. The standard is one straight square piece of oak or mahogany, and divided, from the top to the bottom, in figured spaces of four inches each; every space of which is termed a HAND; so that a horse of fifteen hands is precisely five feet high. From the standard branches horizontally a projecting arm, of about twenty inches, or two feet in length, which sliding upwards or downwards, is raised higher, or sunk lower, with the hand, till it rests easily upon the extreme point of the wither; when, by looking at the proper suspension of the pendulum and the figures at the same time, the heighth of the horse is instantly ascertained.