88 



PHYSIC. 



find three animals are kept where the owner has full employment only 

 for two of his slaves. 



The horse, therefore, is generally worked to the limits of its strength. 

 That there may be no doubt upon this matter, the person who has to 

 judge of its capabilities is he who has an interest in the amount of an 

 animal's exertions. The fact is, however, proved by the wonder excited 

 when a quadruped is recorded to have reached the natural period of its 

 existence. The great majority of horses in this country perish of ex- 

 haustion before their maturity has been attained. The sad reality, that 

 of the numbers reared in England the great majority of humanity's hum- 

 ble, obedient, and willing slaves are goaded to early graves, before all 

 their second teeth are up, and before the consolidation of their bones fits 

 them to endure the strain of fatigue, too fearfully establishes the fate 

 which beauty and submission receives at the hands of avarice. 



Man is a hard task-master ! He Was so when the pyramids were 

 raised ; he is so still in the Southern States of America. There is some- 

 thing wrong in the creature who can thus abuse all that serve him. Had 

 the horse twenty times its present strength, it would still be below the 

 point of human requirement. It is a very painful occupation to look 

 into a London street, and, having an understanding which can interpret 

 equine significances, to observe the lame, the deformed, the starved, the 

 overloaded, and the weary animals staggering along the thoroughfare, 

 but to perceive . none without the goad, to enforce exertion, flourished 

 by its side. Yet the creatures thus used, unconscious of a holiday and 

 worked through sickness or through suffering, are thought by some per- 

 sons to possess such a redundancy of health that they can support or be 

 benefited by the life's blood being drained, at stated periods, out of their 

 wretched bodies ! 



Nevertheless it is possible a timely depletion may, upon certain occa- 

 sions, save life. Neither the present 

 reader nor the writer may witness so 

 rare an occurrence ; yet because of the 

 possibility, every horseman should be 

 equal to such an emergency. For the 

 performance of so trivial an operation 

 certain tools are imperatively necessary. 

 The first among these is a blood can or 

 a tin pail, which is generally divided, 

 by indented lines, into eight equal sec- 

 tions. The receptacle being made to 

 contain two gallons, each compartment, 

 when filled, indicates a quart to have been \fl»thdrawn. Wretched horses 



A BLOOD CAN, WHICH IS MARKED TO INDI- 

 CATE WHEN A (yjABT OF FLUID HAS BEEN 

 EXTEACTED. 



