,—the name of a horse of much recent and racing celebrity, the property of Mr. Durand. He was bred by Mr. Parker, and got by Ulysses out of Tiffany's dam. In 1794, at three years old, (in the name of Mars,) he won 50l. at Epsom, beating six others. At Stockbridge, a sweepstakes of 10 guineas each, nine subscribers. At Winchester he walked over the Course for a sweepstakes of 20 guineas each, eight subscribers. In 1795, when four years old, he beat Mr. Turner's Tim Tartlet, two miles for 200 guineas. The next day he beat Mr. Cauty's Alderman, two miles for 50 guineas. He won also 50l. at Guildford; a sweepstakes of 15 guineas each at Stockbridge, seven subscribers: the next day a sweepstakes of 10 guineas each, six subscribers. At Winchester, a sweepstakes of 10 guineas each, eight subscribers. At Egham he walked over for a sweepstakes of 10 guineas each, five subscribers. The next day he won a 50l. plate, beating Pandolpho and Serpent. In 1796, when five years old, he won the Craven stakes, of 10 guineas each, at Newmarket, beating eleven others. 50l. at Ascot Heath. In 1797, then six years old, he won 50l. at Epsom, beating five others. 50l. at Lewes, beating Gohanna and Keren-happuch. 50l. at Abingdon, beating Keren-happuch, Paroquet, and Roland. In consequence of having been so hard run for FOUR years in succession, he started SEVEN times in 1798 without once winning. In 1799, he won 50l. at Epsom, beating Yeoman and Midnight. 50l. at Guildford, beating Mr. Lade's David, and two others; and 50l. at Egham, beating Lord G. Cavendish's horse by Jupiter; after which he was purchased by Mr. Dashwood, in whose possession, at nine years old, in 1800, he beat Mr. Whaley's Post Boy, four miles over Ascot, for 100 guineas, and walked over at Egham for a sweepstakes of 20 guineas each, three subscribers: after which he appeared no more on the turf.
PLEURISY
—is a disorder in the horse so nearly allied to an INFLAMMATION of the LUNGS, that probably the most judicious and experienced Veterinarian would not, without much difficulty, be enabled to distinguish between one and the other. The predominant symptoms are sudden and violent: he first becomes heavy, dull, and oppressed; soon shews great difficulty of respiration, pants exceedingly; is distressed with an almost incessant painful endeavour to cough: the mouth continues, from the commencement of the attack, hot, parched, and dry: at this time he is exceedingly restless, frequently laying down, and as suddenly rising; but as the disorder advances, he stands in his stall so overwhelmned with fever, pain, and bodily oppression, that he displays no wish or desire to vary his position, but stands fixed in one posture, resigned to his fate. As the disease approaches nearer its crisis, a slimy saliva appears in the mouth, and a ropy viscid discharge from the nostrils. This being one of the disorders so rapid in its progress, and so destructive in its effects, as sometimes to set all efforts to relieve at defiance, every necessary means of counteraction should be most expeditiously adopted upon the first discovery of the attack.
It is in general produced by some sudden and powerful revulsion; as an instantaneous change from heat to cold, in which the perspiration becomes so severely checked by a collapsion of every pore, that NATURE sustains a shock, productive of almost immediate and perceptible morbidity. Journies of speed, and afterwards standing still in cold rains, or sharp winds, as well as being supplied with water when in a high state of PERSPIRATION, are probably the principal causes from which the disorder is mostly known to arise. The direct road to cure is too plain and unequivocal to admit of different opinions. Bleeding, and that both largely and repeatedly, must be submitted to, if circumstances require it; no hope of relief can be expected without it. It is no uncommon thing to bleed a horse four or five times in as many days, and his recovery to be justly attributed to that important mode of subduing inflammation. Gruel, impregnated with small quantities of NITRE and GUM ARABIC, should be the common drink. Mashes, of ground malt and bran, should be placed in the manger boiling hot, that the head, throat, and glands, may derive every possible advantage from FUMIGATION, to assist in taking off the pulmonary stricture, and promoting a plentiful discharge from the nostrils, which is one of the leading proofs that the disease has reached its crisis, and may be considered the first indicative expectancy of recovery. In the greatest bodily debility, when no food is taken, a cordial ball, dissolved in gruel, should be given (with a horn in small quantities at a time) twice a day. Equal parts of the wort squeezed from the malt, and good clean-boiled sweet gruel, should be patiently held before the horse twice or thrice in every hour for some minutes: from the great internal heat, he is frequently induced to swallow a quart or two at each time; although, if offered and taken away in haste, he might invariably decline it. It is only by such persevering attention, both NIGHT and DAY, any expectation of cure can be entertained.
PLUMAGE
.—The feathers upon every kind of fowl, wild or tame, is so termed: if speckled, or interspersed with different streaks, or opposite lights and shades, it is then called variegated plumage. If a GAME COCK is bred perfectly WHITE, he is called a SMOCK.
POACHERS
—are those determined destructive nocturnal depredators, by whom the game is so shamefully reduced in opposition to all LAW, and defiance of all ORDER, from one extremity of the kingdom to the other. This head cannot be better elucidated, than by transcribing literally, from the recent work of a writer of much celebrity, his judicious remarks upon the subject.
"It is, perhaps, among that description of persons well known by the name of poachers, that the greater number of those are trained to rapine, who infest every rural neighbourhood with their petty thefts, and whose dexterity almost bids defiance to precaution. Accustomed, in the ensnaring of game, to the secresy of fraud, and committing their depredations amidst the silence of night, those horrors, and that consequent dread, which frequently deters from the commission of great offences, gradually lose their effect. Solitude and darkness, which have wherewithal to appal the human mind in its first deviations into guilt, are divested of their terror in those pilfering pursuits; and the consequence is sufficiently well known to all, who, in the capacity of magistrates, are called to sit in judgment on the delinquency of public offenders. It is to this initiation they ascribe their subsequent enormities.
"When guilt, however venal, becomes, by repetition, familiar to the mind, it is not in the power of the ignorant and uneducated to restrain its excesses; they cannot arrest their career of iniquity; they cannot chalk out the line of wrong beyond which they will not pass. Confining their first nocturnal excursions to the snaring of HARES, and netting of PARTRIDGES, whenever they have a less booty than usual, they are tempted to compensate the deficiency by petty plunder of some other kind, and the log-pile, the stack, the fold, the hen-roost, all in turn, pay tribute to the prowling vagabond, who fills as he can that void in his "capacious bag," which has been left by his want of success as a POACHER.