STUD BOOK. 61 



adapted more for parade, and shown more to gratify the 

 ambition which one brewer has to outvie his brethern, than 

 for any peculiar utility. They are certainly enormous 

 animals; but they eat their full share of provender, and in 

 hard and continued work they would be comparatively beaten 

 by an equal number of hardy muscular horses much lower 

 in stature. 



Until the establishment of the railroads, the stage-coach 

 horse stood high in point of utility and value. In conduct- 

 ing a racing establishment, it would soon be perceived what 

 colts would train on, and what would ultimately break down; 

 and, except there is much neglect in the management of the 

 establishment, the unsound and weak-legged ones were sold, 

 and a considerable proportion of them found their way to 

 the fast coaches. They had the requisite speed, and strength 

 enough to last for a considerable tune. A great improve- 

 ment also, either from fashion or good feeling, took place in 

 the management of the stage-coach horse. He was no longer 

 half-starved, as well as over-driven, but sufficiently fed, and 

 nothing exacted from him but his own proper daily labor, 

 while he was always fully equal to, or above, his work. The 

 consequence of this was, that he required little urging for- 

 ward by the torture of the whip; and there was a marked 

 change in point of humanity in the conduct and character of 

 the driver. Every one accustomed to travel in the public 

 carriages will cheerfully and thankfully acknowledge the 

 improvement that had taken place in this respect 



The length of the stages were materially diminished; and 

 the proprietors having one horse in four always at rest, each 

 of them had the advantage of one rest day in four. Nimrod, 

 a competent judge in these matters, has asserted, in his 

 amusing work on " The Chase, the Turf, and the Road," that 

 "no animal toiling solely for the profit of man leads so easy 

 and comfortable a life as the stage-coach horse. He is 

 sumptuously fed and kindly treated; he has twenty-three hours 

 in twenty-four of rest. He is, except from his own fault, al- 

 most a stranger to the lash; we rarely see him with a broken 

 skin; but we do often see him kicking up his heels when 

 taken from his work, after having performed his stage of ten 

 miles within the hour." 



This pleasing picture, however, too frequently had its 

 shades. The system oPover-working and over-feeding, to 

 which the horse was subject when he came on the road, was 

 undermining his constitution; every disease in him took an 

 inflammatory character; his legs were peculiarly liable to 



