412 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



The enmity to the dog-barrow arises for the most part in ig- 

 norance or in sundry tailor-like riders, who, when their horses 

 have shied, have tumbled off, and this is confessed by the 

 innumerable anonymous letters that from time to time have 

 appeared in the papers of the day, all of which acknowledge 

 to a fall. Also there is an unhappy race of beings in this world 

 who feel so convinced, that they need to raise for themselves 

 characters of humanity, that they must seize on some passing 

 circumstance on which to found their desires. The poor, as 

 I have before said, are sure to go to the wall in any alleged 

 reformation, and therefore in this instance, the poorest of all 

 are taken, on v/hom to work a hardship on the score of 

 humanity. I hear, through anonymous writers, not one word 

 of whose communications I believe, that all sorts of cruelties 

 are practised on dogs in harness ; one of these nameless corre- 

 spondents of the " Morning Herald," stated, that when one 

 dog dropped dead in harness, or had been cruelly despatched 

 by his owner's knife, had then been immediately given as food 

 to his canine companions. That dogs are starved, beaten, 

 or cruelly treated, &c., &c., &c., and that nature by the 

 formation and peculiarities of the dog, has pointed out to man 

 its unfitness as a beast of draught. 



A dog, in proportion to its size and strength, is more fitted 

 than a horse to draw burthens. It is almost impossible to gall 

 his shoulders, from the moveable nature of his skin, and he 

 needs no shoes nailed to his feet to protect them against the 

 roads, nor an iron gag in his mouth to guide him. The 

 moment the dog-cart stops, the dog can and will on the 

 cold stones, their very coldness being a comfort to him, lie 

 down and rest and sleep. If he is near water, he will lie 

 down in that, and be the more refreshed. A horse will not 

 nor cannot do this in harness, and were he to lie down on 

 cold flag stones or in water, or even stand in the cold air when 

 in a perspiration, the horse would very likely die. The dog 

 perspires at the mouth, and is not susceptible of the illness 

 commonly called a cold, and, according to his size, is capable 

 of greater exertion, and of a continuance of it, than any other 

 animal. As to " the poor things panting in harness," a dog 



