AND THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 11 



Doctor Rush, in a beautiful and benevolent eulogy op 

 the Horse, in one of his lectures, related a touching anec- 

 dote of a highly intelligent and successful Pennsylvania 

 farmer, who, stricken down suddenly with apoplexy in 

 his barn-yard, expired on the instant — with this last di- 

 rection to his herdsman on his lips : " Take care of the 

 creatures /" And the biographer of an eminent English 

 Chancellor relates, as from himself, how his beloved son 

 had preferred to him, in his very last moments, a petition 

 in favour of his faithful terrier; ^^And Father^ youHl 

 take care of poor Pitcher, wonH youV* Nevertheless, 

 after all the care that can be taken, we should probably 

 be amazed if we could know the amount of pain unwit- 

 tingly inflicted on animals dedicated to our service, and 

 some of whose bodies are at last consumed to afford us — 

 as some would contend — superfluous nourishment, refer 

 ring back as they do to that golden age when 



« Man walked with beast — joint tenant of the shade ; 

 The same his table and the same his bed — 

 No murder clothed him, and no murder fed." 



Even all unnecessary harshness of reproof should be 

 avoided — for it is well known that some animals are even 

 more susceptible of painful and violent emotions, from 

 various causes, than some men, whose hardened nature 

 and familiarity with vice, render them as insensible to 

 the reproaches of others as to the stings of their own 

 conscience. Those, for instance,who have studied the 

 character and affections of the horse — with a view to his 

 diseases and moral susceptibilities — need not be told that 

 while sharp and threatening words will so disturb him as 

 to quicken his pulse some ten beats or more in a minute,* 



* The natural constitution of different varieties of the same class of 

 animals is worthy of close attention. In small and thorough-bred horses, 

 !or instance, the pulsations of the heart are about 40 to 42 — while in 

 the larger, cold-blooded cart-horse, they do not amount to more than 3C, 

 But when ill-treated, as before suggested, their pulsations are increased, 



37* 



