THP] OVER-CHECK. \4V> 



^'The Chicago Times/' in a recent article in which 

 it joins the ministers and the other good people in a 

 vigorous protest against a proposition to establish 

 Sunday horse-racing in that city^ takes occasion to ad- 

 minister stinging rebuke where it is much needed : 



"And, by the wa}', while the ministers are about 

 the good work of suppressing Sunday horse-races, a 

 little attention to an atrocity that comes nearer their 

 own doors, or the doors of their .churches, might not 

 be amiss. Waiting in front of almost every church 

 every Sunday may be seen handsome carriages, the 

 horses attached to which have their heads drawn out 

 to nearly a straight line with their necks by an inven- 

 tion of the devil called an ^over-check rein.' The poor 

 brutes sometimes endure this constrained and unnatur- 

 al position for hours." 



"^aid a noted eastern preacher once: 'I have 

 little :Paith in the religion of a man whose horse 

 does not know he is a Christian.' It is time for 

 preachers to do something in the way of impressing 

 this gospel of decent hiini;iniiv t<. ^^nimals upox 

 their hearers." 



The late Sir Arthur Helps said: "Whenever I 

 see horses suffering from a too ti.grht check rein, I know 

 the owner is unobservant, cruel or pompous. He is 

 unobservant or he would see that his horses are suffer- 

 ing. He is ignorant or he would know that a horse 

 loses much of his power of pulling and cannot recover 



