THE SUFFOLK PUNCH-HORSE. 427 



THE SUFFOLK PUNCH-HORSE. 



This hardy and active breed has now become nearly ex- 

 tinct. They are rather under sixteen hands in lieight, and 

 their colour chestnut or sorrel. Their heads are rather 

 large and coarse ; their ears being too long and placed too 

 distant from each other for modern taste. The body is 

 deep, capacious, and compact ; the shoulders wide and thick 

 at top, and somewhat low, with the rump more elevated than 

 the shoulder, which it is supposed enables them to throw 

 much of their weight into the collar. They are large and 

 strong in the quarters, full in the flanks, flat and short 

 in the legs, with short pasterns. 



In the " Sportsman's Repository " we are told that " they 

 were the only race of horses which would collectively draw 

 repeated dead pulls, namely, draw pull after pull, and down 

 upon their knees, against a tree, or any body which they 

 felt could not be moved, to the time of Jup, Ji ! ! and 

 the crack of the whip, (once familiar, but abominable 

 sounds, which even now vibrate on our auditory nerves) as 

 long as nature supplied the power, and would renew the 

 same exertions to the end of the chapter." 



The hideous yelling of most carters and farm servants, 

 which is still prevalent when driving horses, not only in this 

 country, but also on tlie continent, is a barbarous custom ; 

 for I have known many instances where gentlemen subdued 

 this practice in their servants, and the most gentle and tem- 

 perate accents were found to succeed better than the fright- 

 ful and thundering exclamations in general use. Every 

 possible means should be used by those who have either 

 influence or power over that class of men, to abolish this 

 noisy and useless practice, which not only stuns tfce poor, 



