EVILS OF MODERN STABLES. 201 



life is action; "to be," is synonymous with "to do;" therefore it is a 

 sheer necessity of existence that an animated being must be doing some- 

 thing. Such is the primary consequence of existence. Thus, to breathe 

 and to move, imply one act ; since, if the lungs cease to dilate, respira- 

 tion immediately terminates, and, with it, animation comes to an end 

 Yet it remained for mortal perversity to rebuke the first principle of estab- 

 lished philosophy, when stables were built in which a breathing animal 

 was to be treated as it were an inanimate chattel. 



Nature, like a kind mother, is to this day endeavoring to teach her 

 wayward children a plain truth, which they may hourly behold enforced 

 by visible examples. The willful brood appears to, be in no hurry to 

 learn. Man still treats the horse as though he honored the quadruped 

 by enslaving it, and ennobled a life by conferring upon the animal the 

 title of his servant. He acts as though, by such conduct, sufficient rea- 

 son was exhibited why he should oblige the creature to resign its instincts 

 and relinquish its desires. 



The equine race, when in a wild state, are gregarious, or congregate 

 in herds. Man captures such a quadruped and places it in a stable, 

 built to enforce the extreme of solitary confinement. The plain is the 

 natural abode of the herd; on their speed depends both their pleasure 

 and their safety. Man ties the domesticated horse to a manger, and 

 pays a groom to enforce absolute stagnation upon innate activity. The 

 "panting steed" is the most timid of living beings. Man insists the 

 charger is possessed of extraordinary courage ; he declares it delights in 

 the tumult of battle ; and he esteems it a glorious achievement to brutally 

 coerce the timorous sensibility. The mild-eyed horse is, perhaps, the 

 most simple of all the breathing beauties which adorn a wondrous world. 

 Man declares all of the gentle breed have dangerous propensities, and 

 are most inherently vicious. 



Before subjugation, the creature fed off the surface of the earth. Man 

 builds a house specially designed for the captive, in which the corn is 

 placed on a level with the chest, and the hay is stationed as high up as 

 the head. The animal is gifted with affections ; it longs to gratify their 

 promptings ; it yearns for something upon which its abundant love may 

 gush forth, — a fellow-prisoner — a goat — a dog — a cat — a fowl ; no matter 

 what, so it be some living object on which may be lavished that excess 

 of tenderness which, confined to its own breast, renders being miserable 

 Man esteems it his primary duty to clear the stable of all possible com- 

 panionship ; but the creature which would rejoice, were it only permitted 

 to worship its enslaver, he rarely approaches without a loud voice, a 

 tarsh word, or a harsher blow announcing his presence to the captive. 



The inhabitant of such a prison, a domesticated horse miserably drags 



