MAEKS OF AGE, AND ABUSES. 491 



ests of equine improvement closes its session, and pandemo- 

 nium breaks up, to herald, through the newspapers, far and 

 wide, the wonderful achievements of the race-course. Was 

 it not of such a class, and of such ungodly practices, that the 

 prophet denounced in this fearful language : " The harp and 

 the viol and the tabret are in their feasts, but they regard not 

 the work of the Lord, neither the operations of his hands. 

 Therefore, hell hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth 

 without measure ; and their glory, and their multitude, and 

 their pomp, and he that rejoiceth therein, shall descend 

 into it." 



Perhaps this picture is characterized by a more vivid col- 

 oring than is just in all cases ; and yet we must express our 

 unqualified condemnation of the whole system of horse- 

 racing as evil, and only evil, and that continually. It is a 

 gambling institution from first to last. We believe that the 

 great plea put forth in its defense is essentially false, and 

 that if more efficient measures were not employed to accom- 

 plish the same ends, there would be but very few fine horses 

 in the country to-day. 



Kace-horses are not the stock the farmer needs. He has 

 no interest in the turf whatever. There are better bloods 

 in the country than those commonly represented on the 

 race-track. How is it with the other domestic animals? 

 They have improved vastly more than the horse, and that 

 without any such extraordinary incitements as the turf 

 is claimed to afford the horse-breeder. Intelligent, enter- 

 prising gentlemen have been found, in considerable numbers, 

 to import fine breeds of cattle, sheep, and hogs, and to-day 

 these animals unquestionably stand in advance of the Amer- 

 ican horse in all the essentials of fine forms and desirable 

 qualities. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether our 

 horses are not slowly but surely deteriorating from year to 

 year ; and, while it would be too much to charge the whole 

 mischief upon the abuses of the race-course, there can be no 

 shifting of much of the responsibility from those causes. 



'No horse, put to the top of his speed for two or three miles, 



