THE SO-CALLED "INCAPACITATING VICES." 269 



the operator is exerted. While he is doing this, the person who under- 

 takes the investigation fixes his attention on the head of the horse. If, ' 

 upon pressure being made on any particular spot, the ears are laid upon 

 the neck, or the crest is suddenly elevated, the fact must be mentally 

 noted. The trial should be renewed, and if the like symptoms be elicited. 

 the conclusion naturally is, that the seat of injury lies immediate-ly imder 

 or very near to the place indicated. 



This point being ascertained, the operator puts a hand on either side 

 of the tender part, and casts his full weight suddenly upon the spine. 

 Such a proceeding, to be demonstrative, must be rapid and energetic. 

 Horses, under the sudden pang thus produced, have shrieked in agony. 

 Generally, animals crouch under the torture, and burst forth into copious 

 perspirations. The author knows of no instance where a desire to em- 

 ploy the teeth has been exhibited, although there is no predicating in 

 what manner a creature may behave under the powerful wrench of 

 actual torment. He, however, who undertakes such an inquiry, must 

 be prepared for every eccentricity; and, while regretting the necessity 

 which obliges agony to be inflicted on a gentle and a timid creature, he 

 should also be far above those coarse and brutal punishments which are 

 too frequently indulged to check the writhings of the potent suffering. 



The affair is thus decided. The spine has been injured, and the spinal 

 cord which it sheathes is also involved in the lesion. Horses in such a 

 condition are commonly, with that utter want of morality which in every 

 species of horse transactions appears equally to sway all degrees of the 

 human mind, — such arlimals are commonly cast upon the market, or 

 publicly disposed of by auction. The cause of sale is willfully con- 

 cealed : the purchaser is designedly imposed on, and his life is know- 

 ingly endangered. Persons of every class, from most noblemen to the 

 ordinary tradesman, engage in this form of arrant cheatery. They 

 swindle their sense of rectitude by giving no warranty at the time of 

 sale; but the law presumes that everything sold contemplates a fitness 

 for certain purposes ; whereas a horse liable to an instantaneous loss of 

 power in its limbs is dangerous in any employment. Yet so flimsy an 

 excuse seems to justify the reputedly honorable man extracting, possi- 

 bly, the last penny from the pocket of or imposing upon some struggling 

 and needy individual. 



The animal, being sold, is soon found to be worthless; it speedily 

 becomes the property of the lower class of horse-copers, to whom that 

 which they call a "kidney dropper" is a real prize. The quadruped is 

 sold "cheap" to people of worldly respectability; but it is seldom re- 

 tained long by its new owners. It is rebought, for little more than its 

 real value, by its former proprietors, to be once more palmed off on 



