122 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 



have established this; and before closing the subject of 

 our nervous consideration, I must once more ask you 

 to consider, 'per contra, what have we to look at. A 

 perfectly free and ignorant system of horse breeding 

 amongst the class and throughout the districts in these 

 kingdoms from which the vast majority of our general 

 horses proceed. A stallion gaining custom from the 

 popularity of an owner perfectly regardless of his own 

 good or bad qualities. Fillies only preserved to the 

 country that from some objectionable qualifications render 

 them beneath the speculative notice of a foreign agent. 

 For years, as I have before said, colonels of cavalry 

 regiments, contractors, veterinary surgeons, and practical 

 men, in newspaper columns, have been registering ex- 

 periences tending to exhibit shortness of supply, and 

 want of the "wear and tear" characteristics in our general 

 horses of a former period. Notwithstanding which, yearly 

 recurring and increasing evils are allowed — without any 

 countervailing attempt of a national character — to sow 

 the seeds of carelessness and ignorance, that gives in its 

 own time a croj) of disappointment, chagrin, alarm, and 

 disgust. And why should this be ? Is it because the 

 general English public is less at home upon the subject of 

 horses than upon almost any other ? Ought not that to be 

 the chief reason why those confided with the nation's in- 

 terests should be the more punctiliously careful ? We 

 have not the excuse of want of alarming warnings, or prac- 

 tical examples, as to the huge preponderating power that 

 such an arm as a powerful and efficiently-mounted cavalry 

 gives. We know, too, from the Royal Commission en- 

 quiries what our cavalry state is at present, and what it 

 promises to be in the future under the existing state of 

 things. We learn that the Franco-Prussian war has caused 

 the deportation of thousands of most objectionable mares 



