22 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



very refinement of cruelty. The Anglomaniacs, to 

 whom we owe the revival of clocking, should consider 

 that in our climate of flies and mosquitos the practice 

 is infinitely more cruel than it is in England. 



I have endeavored to show that the horse is an 

 animal peculiarly capable of suffering, and to suggest 

 some of the ways in which his suffering can be pre- 

 vented or alleviated. Of late years, thanks largely 

 to anti-cruelty societies, the horse has been less abused 

 than was formerly the case. But let any one, and 

 especially any one who may have a fancy for the 

 human race, consider what awful arrears of cruelty 

 to dumb animals have accrued at its hands. Let him 

 think of the horses that have been baited to death, as 

 bulls are baited ; let him think of the unspeakable 

 remedies that have been applied by ignorant farriers 

 and grooms, such as the forcing of ground glass into 

 the animal's eye ; let him think of the horses that 

 have been "whipped sound" in coaches and heavy 

 wagons, — that is, compelled by the lash to travel 

 chiefly on three legs, one leg or foot being disabled, 

 until the overwrought muscles gave out entirely ; let 

 him think of the agonies that have been inflicted by 

 beating and spurring, of the heavy loads that a vast 

 army of painfully lame, of diseased, and even of dying 

 horses have been forced to draw. Let him take but a 

 single glance at the history of the human race in this 

 respect, and another perhaps at his own heart, and 

 then declare if it be not true, as was once remarked 

 to me, 1 "Man deserves a hell, were it only for his 

 treatment of horses." 



1 By the late John Boyle O'Reilly. 



