276 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



suspicion, as a thing fiuitful in the dissemination of immorality and 

 sin, by those to whose care and keeping is committed the momentous 

 subject of public morals. 



The aged, the wise, and virtuous, direct in that road, and point to 

 that goal to ^Yhich all our aspirations should tend, — that attainment, 

 compared to which all secular objects are but secondary. 



Is it strange, that the sedate moralist, taking a stand to scan "Young 

 America" as he is being developed on occasions of public hilarity, 

 should occasionally find his arbitrary rules of decorum kicked by the 

 antics cut through the propelling force of that exuberant effervescence 

 of animal spirits that finds the escape valve only on two or three days 

 in three hundred and sixty-five ? 



After scanning the heap of complaint and caution before the public, 

 including that flow of cheap talk made by niggardly, collapsed bigots, 

 soured by the erection of a tight fence between their " corporosity " 

 and a free show, we would proceed with our subject, bending only to 

 our convictions of duty, to sustain, at all hazards, a wholesome, moral 

 jjublic sentiment. 



It is the conviction of the committee, that the practice of some socie- 

 ties, in the offering of high premiums on fast horses, to be matched 

 on the course, or allowing their grounds to be used by individuals for 

 that purpose in connection with their shows, is one calculated to alarm 

 the moralist. 



' By a brief consideration of the subject, may we not hope to find an 

 intermediate ground on which extremes may meet, to the satisfaction 

 of all the patrons of our fairs ? 



Who can wish that the noblest of our domestic animals should be 

 excluded from our cattle shows ? But a few years since it was a 

 matter of general remark and regret that so few horses were on exhi- 

 bition. The lack then was more in sufficient encouragement, than in 

 the scarcity of worthy specimens. 



It being desirable that the horse should be on exhibition, the ques- 

 tion arises: How shall he be shown so as to do justice to himself, 

 his owner, and the society for whose benefit he is introduced ? 



Shall the committee proceed to award premiums on these animals, 

 Avithout examining them in all the prominent characteristics which 

 make up their value ? How is one to judge of speed and "power of 

 endurance in a horse ? How valid is the objection to all horse trot- 

 ting, that it engenders betting ? It is true that it may be made a 

 subject of betting, and so may many other things that are met in con- 

 nection with every exhibition of the kiml. We ever have anfong us 

 individuals who will engage in lotteries in defiance of law and whole- 



