158 UNASKED ADVICE. 



severe, there is no remedy. A stiff joint is the most 

 favourable ending that can possibly be hoped for, and 

 that is not a termination that would please a master who 

 wished to use his horse for hunting. A broken neck 

 speaks for itself, either in the case of the horse or his 

 rider ; so does a broken back, which is a case for merciful 

 destruction. But while on this subject, let me advise 

 young sportsmen to be sure that their horse's back really 

 is broken before they have him destroyed. A horse may 

 fall, and lie for some time exactly as if his back were 

 broken, when nothing of the sort is the case ; and there 

 are always lots of " good natured friends " about, who 

 are only too ready to put a horse " out of his pain," 

 ^vvhen he belongs to "another fellow/' A horse whose 

 back is really broken I do not think suffers much, as he 

 is paralysed everywhere behind the fracture ; so it is no 

 great cruelty to wait until a competent opinion can be 

 had before proceeding to extreme measures. The test of 

 trying whether the prick of a pin can be felt by the 

 -animal (of course behind the supposed place of injury) is 

 not infallible. I remember a case in point; and, indeed, 

 I pride myself upon my remarks being founded on actual 

 experience. It happened very many years ago when the 

 young sportsmen, for whose benefit these lines are (with 

 all humility) intended were in their ' ' berceaunettes," if 

 indeed they had made their appearance at all at a 

 country steeplechase meeting (it was one then, but now it 

 would be a metropolitan one) a horse fell, and lay where 

 he fell. A grand chorus arose from the excited spec- 

 tators of " His back's broke ! Cut his throat ! " (I don't 

 pretend to know whether the leaders of this demonstra- 

 tion had laid against the steed ; possibly so ; this occurred 

 in the dark ages ; we can now make ' ' a dead 'un," with- 



