CHAPTER I. 



KINDNESS. 



IN our dealings with the brute creation, it cannot be too 

 much insisted on that mutual confidence is only to be 

 established by mutual good-will. The perceptions of 

 the beast must be raised to their highest standard, and 

 there is no such enemy to intelligence as fear. Reward 

 should be as the daily food it eats, punishment as the 

 medicine administered on rare occasions, unwillingly, 

 and but when absolute necessity demands. The horse 

 is of all domestic animals most susceptible to anything 

 like discomfort or ill-usage. Its nervous system, sensi- 

 tive and highly strung, is capable of daring effort 

 under excitement, but collapses utterly in any new and 

 strange situation, as if paralysed by apprehensions of 

 the unknown. Can anything be more helpless than the 

 young horse you take out hunting the first time he finds 

 himself in a bog ? Compare his frantic struggles and 



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