226 EVILS OF MODERN STABLES. 



bits boyi put into large hutches. Were smaller horses desired, ponies, 

 even no higher than full-sized dogs, are not scarce. But greater weight 

 and strength enable the quadrupeds to perform larger services. Does it 

 not seem like meanness to select size for our own purposes, yet, where 

 the creature is concerned, to make size a motive for stinting the neces- 

 sities ? The horse is useful to man in proportion to its magnitude ; 

 and the poor slave, therefore, ought not to feel the bulk to be its mis- 

 fortune ! 



The author cannot here report the grooms' opinions upon such a topic, 

 though, doubtless, these persons would be the advocates of misrule. 

 There is no class, however, which suffers more than stable-men, from 

 the present custom of confining horses. On cold, wintry nights, when 

 snow is on the ground, these persons, who generally live above the 

 stable, are often awakened from their first sleep, forced to leap from 

 warm beds, and, thinly clad, to hurry down stairs to quiet the horses. 

 The entire stable are lashing out at the same moment. Each hoof 

 seems to be leveled at the stall post, which all violently strike ; hence 

 the disturbance. 



But what occasions horses to kick by night ? That question is per- 

 haps best answered by another. What occasions children to cry by 

 night ? Botb wake suddenly, and each finds darkness or solitude and 

 silence around it. The horse is a timid creature, and it is of a limited 

 intelligence. Children are not generally conspicuous for courage, and, 

 in them, the reason is undeveloped. Infants are born with a natural 

 sense of helplessness; hence they are the easy victims of alarm, and 

 when frightened, they scream aloud. Horses are brought into the world 

 with an instinctive dependence on the propulsion of the heels, and when 

 frightened, they kick. Children have starred up from fearful dreams, 

 and have screamed themselves into fits. Animals also dream ; horses 

 having awakened suddenly, have used their heels as a defense, and 

 have been found lying dead upon the ruins of a battered wall in the 

 morning 1 



The feet, when cast out, hit the stall post. The blackness of night 

 prevails throughout the place; or fear being kindled, the vision is 

 abused. No eye can pierce utter darkness, and terror lends shape or 

 form to every obstacle which the hoof encounters. The dread which 

 sleep has generated, the awakened perception seems to confirm. The 

 animal lashes out with redoubled violence. The noise made by the act 

 soon arouses its companions. Nothing is so sympathetic as horror. 

 Armies have been actuated by panics. Why, therefore, should animals 

 escape from such senseless emotions ? When thousands of men have 

 scampered away from no existing peril, cannot the readei* anderstand 



