68 MY HORSE ; MY LOVE 



out, how any lover of the symmetrical can be approvingly 

 silent, when he witnesses a procession of thoroughbreds 

 shorn of this most necessary of Nature's equipments, but 

 otherwise glorious to behold ! In the horse, Nature revels 

 in Hogarth's line of beauty. Starting at his ears she brings 

 her curve about his neck, gently undulating it at his 

 shoulder and along his back, and gracefully bending it 

 about his haunches so as to describe a profile, of which 

 a swaying tail is an artistic necessity.' 



I agree with you, for whoever saw a picture by Schreyer, 

 or Fromentin, or De la Roche, or Rosa Bonheur, wherein 

 these distinguished artists, who have studied and know 

 the beauties of the animal, would consent to depict him 

 after the performance of this brutal operation ! I am 

 sure the question of preference can never be given to 

 the ridiculous bobtails, who lift the abbreviated remnant 

 of their hindquarters like a pompon, absurdly suggestive 

 of a certain fashion in bonnets, or hold it down closely 

 as if ashamed of it ; but to those who still possess what 

 Nature so emphatically designed, and intended they should 

 have. 



'Ah, but it is the moneyed classes who give the cue 

 to the horse-using world, and who find it easier to copy 

 an inhuman abuse than to enlighten fashionable Goths.' 



I have heard and read of many horse lovers in this 

 country, who refuse to buy or own animals so shorn. 



' Yes, there are breeders and buyers here who will not 

 have a horse that is docked, and through their efforts the 

 long-tailed saddle-horse is steadily becoming more fashion- 

 able. European governments will not buy one that has 

 been docked for cavalry purposes, unless others cannot 

 be obtained. It is also well known that ofiicers are not 



