EVILS OF MODERN STABLES. 209 



been overheard ; the cat was thrown aside without the smallest show ol 

 ceremony ; the servant leaped to his feet ; with evident determination he 

 seized the whip and essayed to punish the offense. 



Discarding inferential evidence, and looking at the case for positive 

 testimony, it may be well, before we engage in such an inquiry, to de- 

 termine whether the horse has done wrongly, and whether the servant 

 has acted rightly — the conduct of each being temperately reviewed. The 

 quadruped, standing in the manger, and being naturally a timid creature, 

 the sight of a whip and the smart of its application might cause the 

 terrified life to perform several very energetic and eccentric movements. 

 If the animal's fault laid in its mounting on so frail a platform, that, 

 certainly, was a reason which should not have excited the groom to 

 chastisement during the perilous position. Fear often banishes caution, 

 and the exhibition ground of the contention, then, being specially limited, 

 any alarm was calculated to provoke the danger which it was the office, 

 and doubtless the intention, of the groom to dispel. During the strug- 

 gles caused by sudden fright, hair is often removed and sores established. 

 A horse, surprised by terror, has engendered fearful blemishes ; trouble- 

 some wounds have been produced, and prominences of bone have been 

 fractured by the wild efforts of timidity, when excited by horror. The 

 horse had no business to stand in the manger; but, being a non-reason- 

 ing animal, we may overlook that transgression. The man, however, 

 being an intellectual agent, did very wrong in flogging the steed while 

 the quadruped retained its perilous position. 



To beat a horse, admits of justification by appealing to custom ; but 

 to flog a horse when tied to a manger and confined to a stall, is certainly 

 gratifying the human passion at the risk of injury to that property which 

 every owner is supposed to possess in the perfect condition of his animal. 

 Now man, being blessed with power to think, violated his duty when he 

 indulged his own instincts at the hazard of harm to his employer, or 

 when he chastised the colt for braving the possibility of injury ; since, by 

 so doing, he was guilty of defying the probability of damage, and there- 

 fore stands convicted of a worse fault than that for which he punished 

 his charge. 



Let us now endeavor to ascertain the real extent of that misdeed the 

 contemplation of which provoked an amount of anger sufficient to banish 

 prudence from among the virtues of a reasonable being. The colt is, in 

 the first place, located and fastened within the stable. The fact certifies 

 to no choice having been exercised on the part of the culprit ; therefore 

 it is blameless, so far as being inside a building might imply an error. 

 It was fastened within a defined and an arbitrarily limited department. 

 The animal, however, did not plan the edifice, erect the partitions, or 



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