222 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 



ing their tails, burning their sinews with red hot irons, 

 dividing and cutting out a portion of a nerve, with other 

 excruciating operations on young horses, under which 

 they are often heard to squeal from pain — are inflicted 

 on them, to comply with either a useless as well as a 

 barbarous fashion ; — or to enable them "to go for another 

 season's hunting ; " — or to make them " sound enough to 

 sell ; " or for the attainment of conveniences of which 

 the horse derives not the smallest share : and as the 

 high-bred, broken-down hunter has no voice to ask for 

 mercy, — as he cannot boast of possessing reason, — as he 

 has inherited no knowledge, — as he has no power to 

 bequeath any, — as his whole energies have been devoted 

 to the service and enjoyments of man, by whose mechanical 

 contrivances he is now " cast" with his four feet shackled 

 together, lying prostrate on a heap of straw ; — -just before 

 the red-hot iron sears his over-strained sinews, or the 

 sharp knife is inserted into his living flesh — surely, in a 

 civilized country like England, some high power should be 

 authorized to exclaim, not " Woodman, spare that tree ! " 

 but ^'Sportsman, save that horse T' by chloroform, from 

 the agonising torture to which * you have sentenced 

 him ! 



You are a man of pleasure : — save him from unneces- 

 sary pain. You are a man of business ; — inscribe in that 



