HOW TO TEEAT A HUNTER IN THE FIELD. 75 



be entitled ** a law for the protection of animals from 

 cruelty," applies to every hunting stable, large as well as 

 small, not only in the United Kingdom, but through- 

 out the world. Indeed if it be lucrative to a man to take 

 care of the sheep, oxen, and other animals he is rearing 

 merely to eat, it is most especially his interest by every 

 attention in his power to enable his hunter to carry him 

 safely ; and yet, on this vital subject, for such it is, there 

 usually exists in the horseman a want of consideration 

 which, to any one who will reflect on the subject, must 

 appear highly reprehensible. 



It may readily be admitted that hunting men, generally 

 speaking, make great efforts first to obtain horses suffi- 

 ciently strong to carry them, and secondly, to increase 

 their strength by administering to them plenty of the 

 very best food, with every thing that science can add, 

 to improve what is called their condition. But, strange 

 to say, after having thus made every possible exertion 

 to create or constitute a power sufficient to carry them, 

 after having at great expense and infinite trouble amassed 

 it, they unscientifically exhaust it; and accordingly at 

 the end of a long day it continually happens that a rider 

 dislocates a bone, cracks a limb, or loses his life, from 

 having as it were, like an improvident spendthrift, 

 simply from want of consideration, expended funds neces- 

 sary for his existence. 



