272 HORSE AND MAN. 



If the managing body of the Eoyal Society for the 

 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals should be afraid to 

 proceed in such cases because some of the delinquents 

 belong to the Society, and their subscriptions would 

 be lost, I can only say that the Society would not be 

 doing the work which it professes to do. It ought to 

 proceed against Lord Kennaquhair for having the 

 tails of his horses docked, or for using the gag-rein, 

 as fearlessly as against the butcher's lad for beating 

 his horse about the head with his meat-tray. 



Are we to revert to the practice of ' nicking ' the 

 tail? Perhaps the reader may not know what 

 ' nicking ' signifies. Indeed, I find that very few 

 people have the least idea that ' docking ' means 

 anything more than cutting the hair too closely, and 

 can scarcely believe me when I tell them that the 

 very specious word ' docking ' signifies the amputa- 

 tion of several vertebras of the tail, and the searing 

 of the raw and bleeding stump with red-hot irons. 



There is only one abomination which has not as 

 yet revived, and that is, the operation called ' nicking,' 

 which was in practice some sixty years ago. 



As might be expected, the demands of the pro- 

 fessional eye became more and more exacting. Even 

 the docked tail was not sufficiently distorted from 

 Nature's model to satisfy that eye, which required 

 that the tail should as far as possible resemble a 



