128 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



horse be good tempered, and not inclined to be trouble- 

 some in company, there can be no doubt as to his 

 superior powers of endurance. During the severest 

 campaigns in the Peninsular war, according to the 

 highest and best authority, mares were found most ser- 

 viceable throughout the whole of our cavalry force; 

 and, from the number of mares to be found in coaches, &c. 

 it would seem that mares should have the call. It is 

 sufficient, however, for us to know, that there is no 

 objection to them, that there is no need to regard them 

 as the weaker vessel, that sex is as immaterial as colour, 

 and that whether " black, white, or grey ;" mascuhne, 

 feminine, or neuter; anything of the equine genus, 

 possessing sufficiency of blood and bone — wind, speed, 

 and bottom — may be a hunter. 



How far, or in what manner, this trebly accursed 

 revolution of railroads may affect the breed of horses, 

 and fox-hunting generally, it is impossible to say. The 

 speculation on the subject is of too painful a nature ; 

 we cannot enter fully into it, without verging upon a 

 disquisition on political economy beyond the province of 

 a treatise on the Noble Science. It must be sufficiently 

 obvious to the most narrow-spirited, that, unless they 

 are the objects of fresh legislation, these railroads must 

 become the most oppressive monopoly ever inflicted 

 upon a free country. When all the inns and road-side 

 houses shall be tenantless, and gone to decay, their 



