34 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



a crime to entrust the lives of our soldiers, and it 

 may be the honour and existence of the nation, to 

 such pampered ' weeds ' ? Mr. William Day sup- 

 ports Sir George Chetwynd in speaking as to the 

 best judges giving high prices for useless animals. 



Blackwood's Magazine, in an article in June, 1900, 

 on ' English Cavalry,' says that it was tolerably well 

 known that in South Africa, at any rate, our English 

 troop-horses had altogether collapsed, and had ex- 

 hibited a lack of stamina as certain as it was 

 deplorable ; that when they were called upon for 

 prolonged effort under the uncertain conditions of 

 real war, they had no reserve of constitutional en- 

 durance and vigour on which they could fall back. 

 The writer added that many people thought — and 

 apparently with much reason — that in our country 

 the standard was really depreciating. Many people 

 ' thought'! Why, most people 'knew.' 



What man of common-sense, after reading all 

 this, can upon the question of breeding accept as 

 final the judgment of those who have brought about 

 the state of collapse above depicted } Is it not time 

 to stop, and to begin de novo ? 



C. B. Pitman [Live Stock JoTir7ial Almanack, 

 1902), five years after his former comment, says 

 that the story of the thoroughbred in 1901 was one 

 of continued failures and disappointments, and it 

 could not be said that there was a redeeming 

 feature — the trail of mediocrity was over them all ; 

 that for a short time after the St. Les:er it was 



