MARKS OF AGE, AND ABUSES. 479 



THE CHIN. 



When the horse is about ten years old, the chin or lower 

 jaw-bone begins to be pointed, its lower edge becoming quite 

 sharp and angular. Like the other signs of old age, this 

 change of form increases from year to year. At the same 

 time, also, the skin over the jaw-bone becomes more loose ; 

 the flesh shrinks away, until, instead of the fullness and 

 roundness which was found at the age of five and six, there 

 now seems a hollow or depression, and the outer edges or 

 lower angles of the jaw-bone appears to bend out more 

 and more. 



THE EYES. 



The eyes give indications of old age, in their loss of brill- 

 iancy, the flattening of the ball, from the partial absorption 

 of some of the humors, and in the deepening of the hollow 

 over them. 



Wrinkles commence coming on the under lid of the eye 

 at a very early age. By many these are considered a more 

 correct criterion of age than even the teeth, and nearly as 

 infallible as the wrinkles upon the horn of a cow. It is as- 

 serted by them that these wrinkles make their first appear- 

 ance at the age of three years, and- that all one needs to do, 

 to ascertain how many years old any horse is, is to count 

 these wrinkles and then add three to their aggregate number. 

 Of the correctness of this rule we have serious doubts; yet 

 it is certainly true that numerous wrinkles are a mark of 

 old age. 



THE ABUSES OF THE HORSE. 



A great many persons use the horse as if they really be- 

 lieved him to be made of iron. It is perfectly astonishing 

 what a Jack of mercy, and how much brutality, there is in 

 the world — ^how utterly devoid some persons seem to be of 

 the commonest instincts of humanity in their treatment of 

 the brute creation — how little regard is paid by thousands 

 to those lessons of the Divine Word that inculcate the beau- 

 tiful virtue of mercy. The injury which the horse sustains 



