In this method of performing the operation, there is a very trifling loss of blood, which is almost immediately suppressed by a pledget of tow, previously prepared, and slightly impregnated with any of the simple styptics, or FRIAR'S BALSAM, incorporated with a little BALSAM of PERU. Custom has established a rule, which it will most probably be very difficult to affect by any verbal or literary expostulation, which is the affixing an immoderate weight to the tail, to prevent a reunion of the divided tendons, by the continued separation of parts: this, it must be remembered, is the less likely to happen, when one of the divided extremities has considerably _receded_, and the other is totally _taken away_. In respect to the precise distances at which the incisions are to be made, that depends upon no fixed rule whatever, but must be regulated by the _thick_ and _fleshy_ formation of the tail, and the height it is required to be carried. The HIGHER it is to be _raised_, the nearer the _first_ incision is to be made to the BASE, observing to let the NICKS decline gradually the _nearer_ they come to the point of the tail; being particularly careful, that the _last_ is not of equal depth and magnitude with the two _nearest_ the quarters; if so, the subject may be expected to carry it with _a curve_ at the extremity, which will add none to the FIGURE or FASHION of the horse.
Although the most expert operators are exceedingly alert and expeditious in the execution, and in general perform the operation with only a _single side-line_, leaving the horse in a very unconfined state; yet the absolute necessity for greater precaution cannot be more forcibly inculcated, than by a recital of the following recent accident, which must hold forth an aweful lesson to those who may be induced to ruminate a few moments upon the event. On SUNDAY morning, October 17th, 1802, as MR. WELCH, a noted and opulent dealer in horses, resident in Oxford-street, in the Metropolis, was NICKING a horse not properly secured, he received so _sudden_ and _severe_ a kick on the BREAST, that threw him to a considerable distance, and _instantly_ deprived him of LIFE. The reflections naturally arising upon the day on which such an operation was performed, open a wide field for religious contemplation; particularly as the sufferer was a man of the most pleasing manners, and personal respectability; having raised himself, by the mere dint of his own merits, from the most subordinate offices of servitude, to a state of perfect affluence.