HISTORY OF THE HORSE. 145 



impossible but for the trusty steed which bore 

 him so gallantly in the lists at the tourney, and 

 amidst the deadlier strife of the battle. Before 

 the plow and at the harrow he has multiplied the 

 productions of the earth a hundred-fold beyond 

 what human strength alone could have secured. 

 Laboring before the loaded wagon, he has been 

 a steady drudge for man. Harnessed to the 

 elegant equipage or to the humbler " cab," or 

 bearing along the dusty highway the stage-coach 

 of the traveler, he has performed a thousand 

 offices indispensable to human comfort and ad- 

 vancement. It is not too much to claim for him 

 that civilization itself would have been shorn of 

 something of its present fair proportions but 

 for the valuable services rendered by this noble 

 animal. 



Yet, with all his acknowledged value, the horse 

 has been too frequently the victim of neglect 

 and cruelty; often ill-fed, poorly sheltered, and 

 harshly treated, till, in many cases, the innate 

 nobleness of his nature has been obscured by 

 vicious habits, contracted through the misman- 



