162 



BITS AND BITTING. 



horse's head will follow the rider's hand, even though 

 the curb lacerate his chin, if only a greater amount of 

 torture he applied to the bars of his mouth, the poor 

 animal being left to deduce from the balance of pain 

 what the rider's will may be. This is the system of 

 bitting employed by the Arabs and other Orientals at 

 the present day; our crusader forefathers borrowed it 

 from theirs, and, strange to say, it is still more or less 

 practised amongst us. 



It is, however, quite possible to economise for our- 

 selves all this surplus ingenuity in devising instruments 

 of torture, and to spare our horses the infliction of it, 

 merely by adjusting our bits altogether on the principle 

 of a lever of the second order that is to say, by con- 

 verting the curb into a simple prop or fulcrum for the 

 lever action on the bars of the mouth, which may be 

 effected by rendering it perfectly painless, so that then 

 the small amount of pressure exercised on the bars act- 

 ing in the proper direction, and not being counteracted 

 elsewhere, is the sum total of pain it becomes necessary 

 to inflict, and even this may be reduced to a minimum. 



-> 3-2=1 



B 



Fig. 9. 



The adjoining fig. 9 shows that, supposing a power 

 equal to 5 to be applied to the reins, it may, in con- 



