The constantly increasing OPULENCE, or the constantly increasing LUXURY, has rendered the demand for horses so very superior to the example of any previous period, that no comparative statement of former and present value can hardly be ascertained. The fashionable rage for expeditious travelling, and of being conveyed at the rate of EIGHT or NINE miles an hour from one part of the kingdom to another, is the absolute furor of the times, and supported at an immense expence by those whose peculiar personal pride prompts them to display the advantages resulting from opulence, and the privileges from ostentation; to the incessant misery and premature destruction of thousands, whose services would be insured _for years_ by a more moderate and HUMANE mode of treatment. The incredible increase of light carriages of every description, has opened such a field for the use of horses of airy form, and easy action, that they are now in eternal request, at more than _double_, and in many purchases TREBLE, what they were to be obtained for no more than twenty years since.
The different kinds of horses bred for various purposes, pass under the denomination of RUNNING HORSES, HUNTERS, CARRIAGE HORSES, CART HORSES, ROADSTERS, and HACKS. The first are propagated in the racing studs of the most opulent characters, and appropriated entirely to the decision of sporting engagements upon the TURF; many of which, after having displayed their powers in this way, then become HUNTERS of the _first class_, and are frequently sold at three and four hundred guineas each. CARRIAGE HORSES, with which the gay and fashionable are now whirled through the western streets of the metropolis with the most incredible velocity, were formerly considered the good, safe, substantial ENGLISH HUNTER, and might _forty years_ since have been purchased for thirty or five-and-thirty pounds, which was at that time about the current value: they are not _now_, however, from the constantly accumulating demand, and incessant destruction, to be procured in a state of youth and purity, at less than nearly _three_ times that sum. CART HORSES of great size, strength, and adequate powers, are principally furnished by the midland and northern counties, for the coal and corn trade, as well as the commercial purposes of the city and suburbs, where they command an incredible price: small and inferior sorts are bred in, and dispersed through, almost every other county in the kingdom. ROADSTERS and HACKS may be supposed to include that great infinity of all sizes, descriptions, and qualifications, with which every road, every common, and every pasture, seem so plentifully to abound.