

THE HORSE 



73 



it is instructive to compare the military strength of a country 

 like China, where the horse is not a common element in the 

 life of the people, with that of any of the western folk who 

 may hereafter have to wrestle with that populous empire. 

 Some writers, in their efforts to forecast the large politics of 

 the future, have imagined that when the hardy and obedient 

 Chinaman came to receive the European training in the mili- 



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Plough Horses, France 



tary art, the armies of that country might prove from their 

 numbers a menace to our own civilization. Such an issue 

 seems in a high degree improbable, for the reason that the 

 eastern realm could not provide the horses which would be 

 necessary for the use of invading armies ; nor is it at all likely 

 that the rigid framework of their society will ever be so 

 altered as to provide an abundance of these animals. 



Although in the first instance the horse served mainly, if 



