HORSES AND THEIR FEET. 469 



question. Every one, we may be told, is well aware that the manage- 

 ment of horses is very faulty, that their lives are shortened by the 

 ignorance of those who have charge of them rather than by any wan- 

 ton cruelty, and that they are rendered practically useless long before 

 their existence is brought to an end. To the plea that the same, or 

 much the same, things may be said of men as of horses, we may answer 

 that the blame must be apportioned to the degree of carelessness with 

 which evils affecting either men or horses are allowed to go on un- 

 checked, or are foolishly dealt with ; nor can failures to improve the 

 condition of mankind furnish a reason for refusing to do what may 

 improve the condition of horses. Our duty ought to be discharged at 

 all costs and under all circumstances ; but a man must have risen far 

 above the average of his fellows if he feels no relief when his duty 

 coincides with his interest. Something is gained by the mere pointing 

 out of this agreement, wherever it exists ; and we must remember that, 

 if a vast amount of human wretchedness is the direct result of willful 

 and wanton perversity, we can meet with no such resistance on the 

 part of brute beasts. With regard to these we have only to see what 

 the evils are ; and the blame is ours, and ours alone, if we fail to apply 

 the remedy, when the remedy, if applied, must be successful. In the 

 case of the horse, unhappily, we do not realize the extent of the mis- 

 chief, and seldom, perhaps never, fix our minds on its cause or causes. 

 Yet the facts, even when reduced within limits which none will ven- 

 ture to dispute, are sufficiently startling. 



The number of horses in the United Kingdom has been estimated 

 at rather more than two millions and a quarter, and their average value 

 can scarcely be set down at less than thirty pounds. Their collective 

 value, therefore, falls little short of 68,000,000. That the nation in- 

 curs a loss if this sum is spent quicker than it needs to be is a self-evi- 

 dent proposition ; that it is so spent is certain, if horses on an average 

 become useless at a time when they ought still to be in full vigor. On 

 this point few will be disposed to challenge the verdict of Mr. W. 

 Douglas, late veterinary surgeon in the Tenth Hussars, who tells us 

 that a horse should live from thirty-five to forty years, and live actively 

 and usefully during three fourths of this period. " All authorities,' 

 he says, " now admit that animals should live five times as long as it 

 takes them to reach maturity. A dog, which is at its full growth 

 when between two and three years old, is very aged at twelve years. 

 Horses do not, unless their growth is forced, reach their full prime 

 until they are seven or eight years old, which by the same law leaves 

 them to live some thirty years longer. When these facts are kept in 

 mind, together with these other facts that three fourths of our horses 

 die or are destroyed under twelve years old, that horses are termed 

 aged at six [he should have said eight], old at ten, very old when 

 double that number of years, and that few of them but are laid up 

 from work a dozen times a year, . . . the viciousness of a system 



