S9 



SECTION- vr. 



HUMANITY TO HORSES — MILITARY MENAGE EXERCISES AND GAMES OF THE 



ANCIENT ROMANS TOU RNAMENTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES — SIDE-SADDLES 



—PARTIALITY TO THE WHITE HOUSE. 



BUT the humanity of the eastern emjDerors to their Horses, which 

 ought by no means to be forgotten, since history has so httle else to re- 

 cord in their favor, was as signal and prominent as their interested 

 attachment. Constantine and his successors, from time to time, issued 

 edicts, not only to regulate the prices of Horses, but to enforce the mild 

 and proper treatment of them, throughout the empire, thereby instruct- 

 ing their subjects in a most important branch of moral justice. It was 

 made penal by the law, to strike the Horse with a club or Unfair 

 stick, their owners being enjoined to correct Horses with a wand or rod : 

 and such were the grateful feelings of the emperors towards those old 

 racers, which had by their labours in the circus, merited well of the pub- 

 lic, that they maintained those faithful servants at their ease, during the 

 remainder of their lives, as pensioners of the public treasury. 



Those worthy pensioners were styled emeriti, or deservedly discharged, 

 and this laudable custom had before prevailed at Rome. A custom, 

 indeed, which ought to have been more feelingly observed in our own 

 country, where even in these times of superior light and humanity, we 

 too often see the aged and crippled steed, Avorn out even in the service of 

 opulence, consigned, for the poor remainder of his life, to the most pain- 

 ful and laborious drudgery, and that in consideration of the most paltry 

 and contemptible price. Nor is this churlish barbarity conlined to Horses 

 of inferior description. It is too Avell known, that Racers of the highest 

 celebrity, and which had earned thousands for their proprietors, have, 

 on their decline in their latter days, been sold fi^om that state of luxury 

 and high keep, to which they had been accustomed through life, to the 



moit 



