FOR PEACE AND WAR. 41 



before it is transformed into the particular tissue for whicli 

 it is destined. Too early training of any kind is productive 

 of incalculable mischief, whether it be mental or physical. 

 It will be found that experience can endorse that every 

 nine animals out of ten submitted as two-year-olds to 

 excessive exertion on the turf never reach the age of five 

 with unimpaired physical powers. The abuse of noble 

 young horses before vigour has established her empire, 

 taxing to the utmost powers which are only artificial and 

 accelerated by a system detrimental to the last degree to 

 the object for which "King's Plates" were first established, 

 is the too patent root of the evil of the want of bone, sub- 

 stance, soundness, and " stoutness," in a large majority of 

 our horses of the present era. 



So long as extended courses and adult horses were 

 the vogue, we find less injury resulting beyond comparison, 

 than the present system of short gallops and immatured 

 animals has been productive of. The abuse and persecu- 

 tion of promising colts and fillies for the gratification of 

 only individual feelings of pride or lucre, is injurious to 

 the beast, lowering to the man, and detrimental to national 

 wealth, glory, and safety ! Ill calculated to do anything 

 but harm to horses, and certainly not elevating to human 

 nature, either morally or socially ; a debasement of a utili- 

 tarian system that had for its pristine object the elevation 

 and progressive improvement of that general horse stock 

 of the British Isles — the pride and glory of the country, 

 and the envy and admiration of the civilized world. That 

 stock once pre-eminent, and that should have remained so 

 to the end of time. Whereas, au contraire, it has sent 

 abroad upon the face of the land the worthless and decrepit 

 stud horses, whose very infirmities render them easy of 

 acquisition, and whom needy speculators have, through a 

 resonant pedigree and other superficial lures, imposed upon 



