HACK
.—Any horse appropriated to every kind of purpose, (and upon which no great estimation or value is placed,) it has been the custom for time immemorial to distinguish by the appellation of HACK. Custom, however, has permitted a slight deviation from a practice of long standing, and A HACK is now generally understood to imply the idea of a hired horse; that is, a horse the property of a HACKNEY-MAN, JOB or POSTMASTER, who lets out horses by the day, week, or month, and who is obliged to take out an annual licence for permission so to do, paying FIVE SHILLINGS for the same: doing which without A LICENCE, renders him liable to a penalty of TEN POUNDS.
Hack horses, whether for riding or drawing, used in travelling post, are individually liable to a duty of one penny halfpenny per mile, for as many miles as such horse shall be engaged to travel within a day, or any less time; but where the distance cannot then be ascertained, one shilling and ninepence shall be paid for each horse so hired. This duty is demanded by the person letting the horse or horses to hire, who, upon receiving such payment, shall deliver to the person so hiring, one or more STAMP-OFFICE TICKETS, under a penalty of TEN POUNDS.
HACKNEY
,—in the general acceptation of the word with the SPORTING WORLD, is a horse superior to all others upon the score of UTILITY; being rendered subservient to every office of exertion, speed, and perseverance, or, in other words, to all the drudgery and labour of his situation, from which his cotemporaries, the RACER, the HUNTER, and the CHARGER, by the imaginary superiority of their qualifications, and pampered appearance, are always exempt. It is the peculiar province of the HACKNEY to carry his master twelve or fifteen miles in an hour to covert, (where the HUNTER is in waiting,) and sometimes to bring back the GROOM with still greater expedition, whose engagements may probably have occasioned him to be much more in haste than his MASTER. It is in the department of the HACKNEY to encounter and overcome emergencies and difficulties of every description: his constitution should be excellent, and his spirit invincible; he must be enabled to go five-and-twenty or thirty miles at a stage, without drawing bit, and without the least respect to the depth of the roads, or the dreary state of the weather; and if he is not equal to any weight, in these trifling exertions, he will be held in no estimation as a HACKNEY of FASHION.
HACKNEY-MEN
.—Those so called are the proprietors of COACHES, CHAISES, and HORSES, for the accommodation of the public, and of whom may be obtained vehicles of such description for any length of time required. They are subject to a LICENCE ANNUALLY, and various duties upon the different carriages, all which are clearly explained in concise abstracts (called "TAX TABLES") from the Acts of Parliament upon this particular subject.
HAIR
,—with which the frame of the horse is so completely covered, and more familiarly termed COAT, is, in general, indicative of the good or ill state of the horse; not only in respect to health, but to his CONDITION, for whatever work he may be designed. If the subject is sleek in his coat, with a glossy shining surface, soft and pliable in the skin; not tight upon the ribs, as if firmly adhering to the side; no enlargements upon the lower joints of the legs, nor any profuse and faint perspiration upon moderate work, the BLOOD may be pronounced in a HEALTHY STATE, and the horse in fair and GOOD CONDITION.
If, on the contrary, the coat is rough, hollow, staring different ways, of a variegated hue, with a tinge of dust or scaly scurf beneath the surface, the perspirative matter has been thrown upon the circulation by a collapsion of the porous system, the blood is become sizey, and disposed to morbidity, in proportion to the preternatural weight by which it is overloaded, and the obstructions it has to encounter in its passage through the finer vessels, occasioned by the languor of the circulation.