THE CASE OF FERRYMAN 71 



when least reduced by sweats : each is capable of 

 doubling his natural and ordinary powers. The skin 

 of the horse is also his complexion ; and it is not until 

 the prize-fighter strips in the ring that his good or bad 

 condition is ascertained. Nothing can exceed the 

 beauty and lustre of some horses' skins when in what 

 is called " blooming condition ; " on the other hand, 

 nothing can be more unsightly, or even appalling, than 

 the death-like appearance of the staring coat of a half- 

 starved doy-horse awaiting his fate in the kennel 

 orchard on a cold winter's day. Let us therefore 

 bestow a little time in endeavouring to discover why 

 a warm, or what by many would be called a hot, stable 

 is essential to the good condition of the horse. 



It is with all improvements upon old systems as 

 with every infant science, we believe before we con- 

 sider, and condemn before we investigate ; by which 

 the simplest truths are too often disputed. In the 

 first place, we must recollect that the horse is originally 

 a native of a warm country ; and we need go no farther 

 than the Scotch Highlands or Welsh mountains to 

 prove that he degenerates in a cold one. We, there- 

 fore, may conclude that warmth is congenial to his 

 existence. In the second place, as we find the body 

 is as regularly renewed and replenished as is the sweat 

 of the brow, whatever promotes that renovation — 

 which warmth, by increasing the circulation, must do — 

 is in this case beneficial. In the third place, they who 

 attend to such matters will find that the constitution 

 and habit of a horse undergo a change when kept for 

 some time in a warm stable, favourable, no doubt, to 



