STABLING. 195 



Upon entering the major part (particu- 

 larly if the door has been but a few minutes 

 dosed, and is opened for your admission), the 

 olfactory and optic nerves are instantane- 

 ously assailed with the volatile effluvia of 

 dung and urme, equal to the exhalation from 

 a stock bottle of hartshorn at the shop of 

 any chemist in the neighbourhood. Here 

 you find from ten or twelve to twenty horses 

 standing as hot, and every crevice of th^ 

 stable as closely stopped, as if the very ex- 

 ternal air was infectious, and its admission 

 must inevitably propagate a contagion. Na- 

 turally inquisitive to discover what irritatin* 

 cause has laid such hold of your most promi^ 

 iient feature, you observe each horse stand- 

 ing upon an enormous load of litter, that 

 by occasional additions (without a regular 

 and daily removal from the bottom)" has 

 acquired both the substance and property of 

 a moderate hot-bed. 



Thus surrounded with the vapours con- 

 stantly arising from an accumulation of the 

 most powerful volatile salts, stand these poor 

 animals.a kind of patient sacrifice to ignorance 

 and indiscretion ; and that the measure af 



o 2 



