78 THE HORSE AND HIS EIDER. 



and condition has greater muscular power tlian tliose in 

 the state of nature just described, it is undeniable that 

 the difference between carrying weight and no weight 

 must produce in each of them similar results ; that is 

 to say, those muscles which are oppressed suffer by the 

 amount of weight inflicted upon them, multiplied by the 

 time they are subjected to it, and again negatively enjoy 

 the periods of rest, be they ever so short, during which 

 they are relieved from it. 



And yet, although every body learns by daily experi- 

 ence that the imposition of weight tires his own muscles, 

 that the abstraction of weight instantly relieves them ; 

 and although it is a known fact that when two thorough- 

 bred horses are racing together, an addition of only 

 seven pounds weight will cause the bearer of it to be 

 " distanced," yet men of rank, intelligence, wealth, and 

 generous feelings, are, at the outside of a covert which 

 the hounds are drawing, to be constantly seen late in the 

 day with cigars in their mouths, conversing and occa- 

 sionally even extolling to each other the qualifica- 

 tions of the noble animals on whose backs they have 

 been thoughtlessly sitting for six or eight hours, as 

 hard as a hen upon a nest full of eggs just about to 

 hatch. 



In the army when a soldier who has committed an 

 offence is sentenced to crawl for several hours up and 



