THE SO-CALLED "INCAPACITATING VICES.' 



281 



It may endanger the life of t\\e driver, but it cannot shorten the duration 

 of the fit. Eveiy kind of brutality has been speculated in without effect. 

 Such treatment, most probably, has prolonged insensibility; for noise, 

 confusion, or agony is not likely to be sedative to the nervous system 

 which a word has morbidly excited. Yet such practices are generally 

 adopted. Nay, the author has heard of a professional man who, re- 

 siding near London, possessed a fine animal which was thus afflicted. 



A POPULAR CURB FOR THE IMAQINAKT VICE OF "JIBBINQ, 



This person actually had some straw kindled under his quadruped's 

 body, and, to quicken what he called "an obstinate vice," partially 

 roasted the breathing flesh of his living property I So monstrous an 

 artifice was successful on the first occasion; but, upon repetition, it 

 oeased to operate. Such a custom is not unusual among the uneducated 

 boors of distant villages; but the writer had hoped that no vexation 

 could have induced an individual, possessing the most distant claim upon 

 the name of gentleman, to adopt so inhuman and useless a resort. 



The horse is a gentle creature ; it has no courage ; it can display no 

 resolution. Its impulses always incline it to flee from danger. It is 

 made up of alarms, and a child's puny hand may guide its huge strength. 

 But the history of the animal supplies too many instances where the 

 perversity of mankind has mistaken the prompting of disease for the 

 display of malice. It is disgraceful to the boasted civilization of the 



