GROOMS. 843 



necessary to the proper performance of the other. The brush is often 

 applied so quickly and sharply as to cause the animal to shrink. The 

 groom would not admire being himself dressed according to such a 

 method. The hair cloth should be used to remove impurities; the 

 brush is employed to expel loose particles, and to smooth any hair which 

 the previous process may have disturbed or roughened ; the wisp is in- 

 tended to polish the coat. Any violence over and above that requisite 

 to fulfill such intentions, is needless cruelty, and should, when detected, 

 be immediately checked. 



The more important portion of a groom's duty, however, concerns the 

 treatment necessary for a wet, a tired, a dirty, or a heated horse. Most 

 servants are successful in dressing an animal when the stable is entered 

 in the morning, but few comprehend how to groom a steed in any of the 

 conditions which have just been named ; and, of that number, fewer still 

 care to stay out of their beds to cleanse the soiled coats of the creatures 

 intrusted to their custody. 



Clipping and singeing are processes which all stable-men greatly ad- 

 mire. However, before the grounds of their admiration are criticised, it 

 may be as well to reason a little upon wh'at appears to be a growing 

 custom. British horses are deprived of the thick, warm covering which 

 nature bestows only in the winter. It certainly does sound somewhat 

 paradoxical, when it is stated that the English allow their quadrupeds 

 to run about in full costume during the summer's heat, but take off every 

 protection as wet, snow, and frost approach. Certainly, if extra cover- 

 ing is requisite at any period, man, by great-coats, cloaks, mantles, over- 

 shoes, respirators, boas and comforters, has declared that Christmas is 

 the time for additional warm clothing. But the groom protests it is im- 

 possible to keep a wintry equine garment dry ; he says that when the 

 creature has been made comfortable the previous evening, the coat is 

 often found to be quite wet on the following morning. 



Still, in some very cold climates, it is not unusual to wet the garments, 

 for the purpose of confining the animal heat, or of preventing cuticular 

 evaporation ; therefore, the moisture of the skin may be ordained with 

 a benevolent design. But granting all the groom can object to wintry 

 perspirations, the body which perspires is confined in a stable, and an 

 impure atmosphere can occasion a faintness which shall provoke a 

 copious cuticular emission. At all events, man has, in his treatment of 

 the horse, made such egregious blunders that he ought to be careful how 

 he presumes, in future, to differ from the ordinances of nature. 



To illustrate the effects produced by a thick, wet covering, and by a 

 thin, wet envelope, let the author narrate the result of a very simple ex- 

 periment, which the reader may without much trouble institute for him- 



