Cloathmg, 219 



In tact I consider, the hc.iUh of cloathed and pampered Morses^ 

 notwithstanding' the re<vularity of their exercise, (which constitutes 

 indeed their chief barrier against disease) to be somewhat of that 

 precarious artificial kind, which hard livers who take a ^reat deal of 

 strong out-door exercise, are sometimes enabled to keep up for a 

 considerable Ieng;th of time ; in whose case, however, it commonly 

 happens, either that some of the vital organs become impaired and 

 thus a premature old age, is induced, or, that the springs of life are 

 suddenly snapped, as if to mock the folly of the specious reasonin«' 

 of the sensualist, and to justify the maxims of virtue and temperance. 

 But, the fact is, that there lies at the very threshold of the aro-u- 

 ment, a stumbling block which requires to be removed, before the 

 reasonableness of what I have advanced respecting the effects of our 

 stable system, upon the health of Horses, can be fairly appreciated. 

 And this stumblingblock is, the common, though erroneous notion 

 which prevails respecting the natural period of the Horse's life. For^ 

 how commonly do we hear a Horse that has arrived at the ao-e of 

 fourteen or fifteen years, called a very old Horse ? and so indeed 

 such a Horse may be considered to be, in one sense of the word, as, 

 besides the innumerable instances of those which die before they have 

 performed much labour, we have the authority of Mr. Bracy Clark, 

 (who has looked into this subject with that philosophical penetration, 

 which distinguishes all the productions of his pen) that,^ for one 

 Horse which is sold in London so old as fourteen years, for the pur- 

 pose of being killed, six find a final period to their miseries at the 

 slaughterhouses of that metropolis, before they have arrived even at 

 that age. Whereas the Horse is not naturally a short-lived animal, . 

 attaining to the period of nearly forty, or, as some old writers have 



