FOR PEACE AND WAR. 137 



It may at first sight appear strange, that these imperfections in 

 carriage, with their attendant train of malformations and blem- 

 ishes, should exist in the young animal as he is usually put into 

 the hands of the trainer ; but nothing is more certain than that 

 peculiarities of gait and carriage are transmitted from one genera- 

 tion to another. The observant enquirer will be at a loss to 

 account for the original introduction of those peculiarities, they 

 being all owing to the mistaken manner in which the animal in 

 his natural state has been subjected to the artificial duties of 

 draught or burthen. 



The wild horse, unaccustomed to either, moves, as do other 

 quadrupeds, in their native state, in perfect balance ; because at 

 each stride he brings up his propellers to the point directly 

 beneath his centre of gravity ; but the moment he receives a rider 

 or burthen, that centre is shifted forward ; for, the seat which 

 convenience most readily resorts to for the saddle back-band, or 

 hooser, just behind the withers, and on which we impose all the 

 burthens we lay upon the animal, is so situated that a heavy 

 body placed there does not press over the point where the weight 

 of the unenc%imbered animal is concentrated, but several inches in 

 advance of it. The new centre of gravity of the whole mass is 

 thus shifted forward to an intermediate point, more or less in ad- 

 vance of that to which the animal in his wild state had been 

 accustomed, and beyond which natural requirement had not called 

 upon him to bring up his motive powers. The consequence is, 

 that his hind legs now act at a disadvantage, and the animal, to 

 make up for their diminished deficiency, has recourse to his fore 

 legs as instruments not only of support, but of progression. 



This is the first fatal step ; it leads directly to all the evils that 

 usually beset this noble creature through man's careless ignorance. 

 The fore legs having now assumed the office of auxiliary pro- 

 pellers, must, as we have already seen, come to the ground in a 

 state of contraction, and as their structure precludes contraction 

 at any joint except that of the knee, they now come to the 

 ground with a bend at that joint, and are thus at once converted 

 from the straight and firm supporters that nature made them, and 



