TREATMENT OF HUNTERS IN SUMMER 103 



remedy, I must here make one observation ; and 

 that is, that I have ever been sparing of punishment 

 to horses when it could be avoided, not only on the 

 score of humanity, but for a natural regard which I 

 have always had for so noble an animal. I must 

 take heed, therefore, how I speak of firing a horse 

 being a " favourite remedy " with me, or I may have 

 some canting moralist on my back, and be set down 

 for the greater brute of the two. 



Perhaps there are few sportsmen who arrive at a 

 good old age without having themselves experienced 

 the potential cautery. When appUed to a horse's leg 

 it is called the actual cautery, being administered 

 in the form of a red-hot iron. In both cases the opera- 

 tion is severe ; but the impression on my mind is, 

 that horses suffer more by severe blistering than they 

 do by firing.i 



In April 1822 I had a hunter of mine fired in both 

 his fore-legs. Previously to the operation he was 

 blistered as I wished — besides strengthening his legs, 

 which appeared about to give way — to reduce a callous 

 substance that had formed on one of his tendons. 

 Being of an irritable temper in the stable, he suffered 

 much by the blistering, and was so uneasy that I was 

 obliged to have a man to stand at his head with a 

 small switch in his hand, for six hours, to prevent his 

 rubbing one leg against the other, by which he would 

 have blemished himself. When ready for the opera- 



1 The application of vesicants, the actual cautery, or a combination 

 of them, is necessarily attended with a considerable degree of pain, 

 but the benefits are undeniable. — Editor. 



