,*^ 



MAEKS OF AGE, AND ABUSES. 493 



The practice originally came to us from England, and re- 

 mains as the relic of an early and corrupt age in the mother 

 country. Even there it is losing much of its former interest 

 and prestige. ]N"o English author now speaks of it except 

 as belonging to sportsmen alone ; and, although all appear 

 to be somewhat fastidious not to offend that peculiar species 

 of gentry, they do bear outspoken testimony to the degener- 

 acy of the horse throughout the United Kingdom, and in- 

 directly hint at racing as one of the prominent causes of 

 this sorrowful phenomenon. Their views find expression in 

 such language as this : 



" There can not be a severer satire on the English nation 

 than this, from the absurd practice of running our race-horses 

 at two or three years, and working others in various ways 

 long before their limbs are knit, or their strength .is devel- 

 oped, and cruelly exacting from them services far beyond 

 their powers, their age does not average a sixth part of 

 that of the last named horse," — (which was sixty-two years.) 



In our country nearly all race-horses are run too young. 

 !N'one of them ever possess qualities that can save them from 

 being injured, for breeding purposes, by such violent over- 

 exertion. That the case is the same^in England, we infer 

 from such statements as the following, by the author of the 

 "Animal Kingdom," who seems to hesitate, however, about 

 tracing out the causes of the declension of which he speaks : 

 "It may be safely asserted that more horses die consumed 

 in England, in every ten years, than in any other country 

 in the world in ten times that period, except those that per- 

 ish in war." [N'ow, the English horse is not worse abused 

 than his fellows upon the continent — perhaps not so badly, 

 indeed — in respect to care and keeping ; and there seems to 

 be no good reason why such a state of things should exist 

 in Great Britain, unless it is the great and long-time prev- 

 alence of racing and hunting there. And that is the coun- 

 try to which we might naturally turn to find the practical 

 demonstration of the benefits of horse-racing, if such a thing 

 were not a mere fiction ! 



