On this excellent principle I advise corset-buyers to act. Purchase what suits you, and if your means are limited, do not trouble about any particular maker, or price.
To wind up, never be ashamed to exercise a reasonable and honest economy. There are really very few among us who do not require to practice it, especially during these difficult times—and there is not anything to blush for in the fact. It is a very false shame indeed which induces us to launch out into extravagances that we can ill afford, rather than say candidly, “I must content myself with something cheaper.” Believe me, there is more shame in owing an honest tradesman five shillings, than in wearing cheap corsets, cotton stockings, and mended gloves—in place of the better or costlier ones which that same five shillings would have helped to buy.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HACKS AND HUNTERS.
I am wonderfully fond of a good hack, and very wroth at times that ladies will persist in mistaking the meaning of the term, and in thinking that it signifies something that is meant to be abused. They take this idea, I have no doubt, from expressions associated with their childhood: hacking out their clothes, for instance,—in other words, abusing them. “Don’t throw it away, it will do very well for a hack,” meaning for very hard usage on second or third-rate occasions. Such a thing as a valuable hack, one not on any account to be subjected to rough treatment, they have never believed in, or, indeed, thought about at all. I was once bemoaning the loss of a favourite of this description to a lady acquaintance, and although she pretended to sympathise with me, I heard her, when I turned my back, say, “What a fuss over a thing that had come to being a hack! Not worth fourpence, most likely.”
Now, it is for ladies who do not know much about hacks, yet who want to learn, that I am writing this chapter. The subject is a very useful one, and might be readily enlarged upon, but I shall be as concise as possible.
Hacks in the olden days were capable of immense hardship; the distances they travelled, the weights they carried, the amount of endurance they displayed, would be deemed marvellous in the present century, and cruel if put to the test. Such animals—and they are very rare—are only now to be met with in the stables of stirring farmers of the wealthy class, who go over their lands before breakfast, and overlook hundreds of acres on the backs of these useful creatures. Occasionally, too, they are to be found with country doctors, well-to-do parsons, and others whose daily work cannot be accomplished on animals less enduring or strong; but the ordinary seeker looks for them almost in vain.
A good hack is a most trustworthy companion. His rider may drop the reins to him on the very worst roads, and yet feel certain that he will put his feet in precisely the right places, and make no mistakes. His fore-feet are always well formed, and whatever the pace may be they fall straight, and flat, and even upon the ground. His action when trotting is from the shoulders, his fore-legs working strictly from them, and just sufficiently bent to enable the rider to see his knees as they are raised, but not to see under them. Chin-knocking action may do for a park hack, but not for a roadster; indeed, I don’t admire it myself in any class of horse, but in a covert-hack it is decidedly objectionable. The wonder of my life is how so many extraordinary goers, such as one sees throughout every hunting season, contrive to jig along, or jog, or pound, as the case may be, without coming down like logs upon the ground; but they do: just as drunken men, though staggering, manage to get home without a fall.
The paces of a thoroughly good hack are characterised by perfect regularity and ease; his shoulders are well set, sloping, and strong; his feet well formed, his back somewhat short, his loins muscular, and his hips wide. The shoulders at the withers are thick and firm—their tops well back—and a good long space between the pommel of the saddle and the termination of the mane.