EARLY MATURITY. 79 
In SPITE HOWEVER Of all the elaborate calculations which others as well 
as myself have made, I cannot quite divest myself of the belief that Lord 
Redesdale is correct in his assumption that the thoroughbred horse of the 
present day is on the average less stout than he was of yore. That there 
are some few which can race and also stay I firmly believe, and that many 
which cannot race but can stay, are early drafted into the hunting-stable, 
is also my opinion ; but that the majority are deficient in stoutness seems 
to me to be a patent fact. Wherever speed is considered to be A 1, such 
horses as Sultan, Partizan, and Velocipede will be used in the stud, the 
breeder flattering himself that a cross of stout blood will put all right. 
And so it frequently does for one or two.generations, and then the strain 
comes out, and the stock shows sometimes the speed without the stoutness, 
and at others neither one quality nor the other. Thus, Venison was got 
by that speedy but flashy horse, Partizan ; but the stout Pot8os, Sorcerer, 
and Gohanna strains enabled him, as well as his son Kingston, to perform 
the tasks of endurance for which they are each so celebrated. The latter 
horse, however, seems to go back to the Partizan failing, for his stock as 
yet have never got beyond three-quarters of a mile, though they have 
been running all over the country for two seasons. It is also well known 
that Lord Winchelsea has great difficulty in finding three horses on the 
turf able to stay four miles, but this is explained by the facts to which I 
have already alluded, and therefore does not so much bear upon the argu- 
ment before us. It is a very difficult matter to prove, because the cir- 
cumstances of the two periods are so different ; but I am quite of opinion 
that, taking any number of racehorses at random in the year 1860, they 
will not on the average bear comparison, in point of stoutness, with 
a similar number, either of the year 1800 or of the year 1760. It is, 
however, notorious that, during the last three or four years, there has been 
a remarkable deficiency of good horses on the turf (and these runs of good 
and bad animals are wholly inexplicable, though they have been constantly 
happening), consequently it is hardly fair to select the present year as a 
test; but, taking any one of the last ten, the same result, though not 
in the same degree, would I think be manifested. Perhaps, if West 
Australian, Kingston, Rataplan, and Voltigeur could be thrown in to make 
the average as good as possible, we might have’a chance; but taking 
twenty horses at random from the list of runners in any season within 
the last ten years, we should find how few could race beyond a mile 
and a half under any weight. 
EARLY MATURITY. 
Iv IS AN UNDENIABLE fact, as I believe, that preternaturally early 
maturity is incompatible with lasting qualities of any kind; but, though 
the same rule generally holds good throughout nature, there are some 
exceptions. Thus, the oak is more lasting than the larch, and the elephant 
outlives the horse, but the goose and the duck, which arrive at maturity 
in the same number of months, do not live through a corresponding series 
of years. The forcing process in gardening is always productive of tender- 
ness, whether the produce be the cucumber or the sea-kale, and this 
tenderness is only another name for imperfect formation to resist decay. 
In the days of Eclipse and Childers they were permitted to attain their 
_ full growth without forcing, and, not being wanted till five years old, their 
ligaments, tendons, and bones had plenty of time to be consolidated before 
they were submitted to the strains and jerks of the extended gallop. 
