We have elsewhere given some acebunt of the encounter between
Mr. Chaplin and Mr. Gerard Stull on British horse- breeding, but we may here add that what alarms Mr. Chaplin so much is the price which foreign Governments offer for good English stallions and brood-mares. The Prussian agent, for instance, had offered £11,500 for Blair Athol, who was only just saved to this country by the formation of a company of private gentlemen, who clubbed to buy him for stock purposes for £12,000; while Breadalbane was secured by the Prussian agent for £6,000, being three times the liberal sum offered for him by the late Lord Ossington. Mr. Chaplin gave some account of the measures by which the cierman, Austrian, and French Governments help and stimulate the horse-breeders in those countries, by dis- tributing to given local centres animals devoted to the purposes of the breeders, and h6 declared that 1,700 of the German horses were of English extraction. Mr. Gerard Sturt's reply showed, however, that private enterprise in this country is much more stimulated by the competition of these foreign customers, than our market is drained by it, the average height of thorough-bred stock having been in 1700, 14 hands, and in 1875, 15 hands two inches and a half,—and Mr; Start asserted that the poorest weed is capable, "if pluckily mated," of producing a horse of great stature and incalculable value. Hence, if only the thorough- bred stock improves steadily, the breeding of ordinary hacks will improve also. Mr. Chaplin's motion was eventually counted out, Mr. Disraeli having declared that if a division were taken, he must vote for "the previous question," moved by Mr. Sturt.
