486 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



foolish and wanton, therefore, to injure or destroy them, 

 either in the manner here reprobated or as mentioned in the 

 section on Deafness, etc., in Chapter YIII. 



NICKING AND DOCKING. 



Fashion is, indeed, a tyrant with no mercy, no heart ; and 

 this is equally true whether the victim of its whims hap- 

 pens to be a human being or one of the dumb brutes. A 

 certain class of exquisites still linger in our country that 

 have such an excessive refinement of tastes, that every thing 

 they use must differ, in some way or other, from the same 

 thing in the possession of the vulgar ^rd of humanity. To 

 their notions, the Creator has made nothing just right — 

 nothing to suit their choice, at any rate. Their morbid 

 fancy can suggest improvements upon the most perfect speci- 

 mens of I^ature's handiwork ; and thus they are continually 

 torturing the poor animals which are so unfortunate as to 

 fall into their hands. 



The Almighty has not seen fit to provide a race of pigs 

 and dogs without ears, nor of horses with short tails, for the 



especial gratification of 

 this superior order of be- 

 ings. Nothing daunted, 

 however, they set to work 

 to supply the deficiency, 

 and here the detestable 

 practice of nicking and 

 docking have their origin, 

 the poor horse becoming 

 the subject of shocking cruelties. Not only is he deprived 

 of part of his tail — a member of the highest usefulness and 

 great beauty — ^but the remainder is so cut, at different places, 

 that the muscles by which it is erected and depressed are 

 permanently destroyed. He must, also, stand with his tail 

 drawn upward by a cord tied to the hair, and then passed 

 over a pulley at the opposite end, where a weight is attached, 

 which stretches the sore and inflamed member as much as 



1*. 



