FARMERS" REGISTER— BLINKERS FOR HORSES. 



273 



ing by their muscles, and that, it is by sheer 

 strength that the reyistance is overcome; but hoiv 

 can it be otherwise.' — their heads are higher ihan 

 nature intended them to be even in waiking in a 

 state of liberty, carrying no weight but themselves; 

 the balance oi" their bodies is, therelbre, absolutely 

 turned aga'ipst, instead ot" leaning m Jlivor otj their 

 draught; and it' my reader wdi but pass his hands 

 down the back sinews of our stage-coach orj^ost- 

 chaise horses, he will soon leel (thougii not so 

 keenly tis they do) what is the cruel and fatal 

 consequence. It is true, that, in ascending a very 

 steep hill, an Englisli jostillion will occasionally 

 .unhook his bearjng-rei.ns; but the jailed creatures, 

 trained for years to work in a lalse attitude, cannot 

 in one moment get themselves into the scientific 

 position which the German horses are habitually 

 encouraged to adojjt. jJesides this, we are so 

 sharp with our horses— we keep them so conslantl}' 

 on the qui vive, or, as we term it, in hand, that 

 we <are always driving them from the use of their 

 weight to the application of their sinews. That 

 the figure and attit^ude of a horse working by his 

 sinews are infinitely prouder than when he is work- 

 ing by his weight— (there may exist, ho^vever, 

 false pride among horses as well as men) — I most 

 readily admit; and, therefore, for carriages of luxu- 

 ry, where the weight bears little proportion to the 

 powers of the noble animals employed, I ac- 

 knowledge that the sinews are more than suffi- 

 cient; but to bear up the head of a poor horse at 

 plough, or any other slow heavy work, is, I con- 

 ceive, a barbarous error, wtiich ought not to be 

 persisted in. 



ON THE USE OF BLINKERS (OR BLINDS) FOR 

 CARRIAGE HORSES. 



From tlie same. 



Odd as it may sound, it is nevertheless true, that 

 •German-post horses have seldom Avhat we should 

 term bridles. Snaffie-bits ending with T's instead 

 -of rings, being put into their mouths, are hooked 

 (by these T's) to iron billets in the head-pieces of 

 common stable halters, by which arrangement, to 

 4eed the animal, it is only necessar}', without tak- 

 ing them from the carriage, to unhook one end of 

 the bits, which then immediately falls from their 

 mouths; a slight trough on four legs is then placed 

 before them, and the traveller generally continues, 

 as I did, to sit in his carriage watching the horses 

 .eating up slices of black rye bread. 



In England, there is no surer receipt known for 

 making a pair of liorse-s suddenly run away with 

 one's carriage, than by taking of!" their blinkers to 

 allow them to see it; but though our method de- 

 cidedl)' suits us the best, yet in Germany the 

 whole system of managing horses fi'om beginning 

 to end is completely different from ours. VV'hether 

 there is most of the horses in a German, or of the 

 iGerman in a horse, is a nice point on which peo- 

 ple might argue a great deal; but the broad fact 

 really is, that Germans live on more amicable 

 terms with iheir horses, and understand their dis- 

 positions infinitely better, than the English; in 

 short, they treat them as horses, while we act to- 

 wards them, and drill them, as if they were men; 

 and in case that any one should doubt that Ger- 

 ptians are better horsemasters than we are, I beg 

 to remind them of what is perfectly well known 

 to the British army — namely, that in the peninsu- 



lar war the cavalry horses of the German Legion 

 were absolutely fat, while those of our regiments 

 were skin and bone. 



In a former chapter I have already endeavored 

 to explain, that instead of reining a horse's head 

 vp, as we do, for draught, the Germans encourage 

 the animal to keep it down; but besides this, in all 

 their other arrangements they invariably attend to 

 the temper, character, and instinct of the beast. 

 For instance, in harness, they entrust these sensi- 

 ble animals (who are never known to forget what 

 they have once seen) with the free use of their 

 eyes. The horses see the wheel strike a stone, 

 and they avoid the next one; if they drag the car- 

 riage aijainst a post, they again observe the effect; 

 and seeing at all times what is behind them, they 

 know that by kicking they would hurt themselves: 

 when passengers and postillion dismount, from at- 

 tentive ol)ser\'ation, they are as sensible as we are 

 that the draught will suddenly become less, and, 

 consequently, rejoicing at being thus left to them- 

 selves, instead of wishing to run away, they in- 

 variably are rather disposed to standstill. 



As soon as getting tired, or fus we are often too 

 apt to term it, "lazy," they see the postillion 

 threaten them with his whip, they know perfectly 

 well the limits of his patience, and that after eight, 

 ten, or twelve threats, there will come a blow: as 

 they travel along, one eye is always shrewdly 

 watching the driver — the moment he begins the 

 heavy operation of lighting his pipe, they immedi- 

 ately slacken their pace, knowing, as well as 

 Archimedes could have proved, that he cannot 

 strike fire and them at the same time; every move- 

 ment in the carriage they remark; and to any accu- 

 rate observer who meets a German vehicle it must 

 ofien be perfectly evident that the poor horses 

 know and feel, even better than himself, that they 

 are drawing a coachman, and three heavy baron- 

 esses with their maid, and that to do that on a hot 

 summer's day is — no joke. When their driver 

 urges them to proceed, he does it by degrees; and 

 they are stopped, not as bipeds, but in the manner 

 quadrupeds would stop themselves. 



Now, though we all like our own way best, let 

 us for a moment (merely while the horses are 

 feeding) contrast with the above description our 

 English mode of treating a horse. 



In order to break in the animal to draught, we 

 put a collar round his necic, a crupper under his 

 tail, a pad on his back, a strap under his belly, with 

 traces at his sides, and lest he should see that 

 though these things tickle and pinch, they have 

 not power to do more, the poor intelligent creature 

 is blinded with blinkers; and in this fearful state of 

 ignorance. Avith a groom or two at his head and 

 a'nother at his side,' he is, without his knowledge, 

 fixed to the pole and sjilinter-bar of a carriage. 

 If he kicks, even at a fly, he suddenly receives a 

 heavy punishment, which he does not comprehend 

 — something has struck him, and has hurt him 

 severely; but as fear magnifies all danger, so, for 

 aught we know, or care^ he may fancy that the 

 splinter-bar, which has cut him, is some hostile 

 animal and expect when the pole bumps against 

 his leo-s, to be again assailed in that direction. 



Admitting that in time he gets accustomed to 

 these pheno.Tfiena, becoming what we term steady 

 in harness, still to the last hour of his existence, 

 he does not clearly understand what it is that is 

 hampering him, or what is that raiding noise 



