MODERN FAURIER. 279 



Oil this subject IMr. Scott justly remarks, that * the 

 debates on lord Erskiiie's late bill, with its inime- 

 rited fate, place this enlightened country in no en- 

 viable point of comparative view with the rational 

 philantliropy of the ancients. This award is too 

 well and too sadly confirmed by our universal con- 

 duct towards animals, the horse beyond ail others, 

 in our mode of treating which justice and humanity 

 bear no part, convenience and interest being all in 

 all. Indeed, what numbers arc there among us, 

 whether of jack ass drivers, gentlemen, nobles, 

 princes, priests, deacons, and bishops, who can en- 

 tertain no concepCion of the grounds or propriety of 

 sentiments like these. How often have we heard 

 of a man or woman, decked out with a great name, 

 and surrounded by a splendid ecjuipage, from a mere 

 contemptible and farcical affectation of consequence, 

 driving with a rapidity by which the heart-strings 

 of some of the poor liorses which draw them are 

 burst ! Such instances are too common as well as 

 atrociously shameful. And that which places our 

 character in another point of view, which I need 

 not define, the above conduct seems not to be held 

 inconsistent with the heautij of hoUuesf< and an ex- 

 alted reputation for piety. How often do we see 

 the aged and crippled steed, worn out in the service 

 of opulence, consigned for the miserable remainder 

 of his life to tlie most laborious and painful drudgery, 

 perhaps, in the end, to death by actual starvation. 

 I have seen a noble old grey coach horse of the 

 higliest form, v. hich had been worn out in the ser- 

 vice of my lord hi.shop, beating the rounds of the 

 London repositories, and enduring all the tortures 

 of the real hell of Smithfield, condemned at last 

 painfully to finish his career in a sand cart. 1 have 

 known racers of high fame the winners of thou- 

 'sands, administering tlirough their best days to the 

 luxury and profligacy of their masters, in their old 

 age sold for a trifling sum, and turned adrift to the 



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