CHAPTER XIY. 



BREAKING AND TRAINING THEIR ERRORS AND THEIR RESULTS. 



HoAVEVER much the English nation may have advanced in civilization, 

 as regards the horse, its habits, its subjugation, and its training, two 

 centuries would appear to have introduced no important change or 

 material improvement. Some minor alterations, undoubtedly, have been 

 adopted ; but the benefits conferred upon the animal by such innovations 

 are more than questionable; and these variations seem to have been 

 regulated far more by obedience to the progress of society, than to have 

 been recommended by the slightest sympathy for the quadruped. 



A reference to the copper-plate engravings which ornament the old 

 work, in two volumes folio, by William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, 

 entitled "A General System of Horsemanship,^^ will demonstrate the 

 present formal mode of sitting in the saddle, which is now regarded as 

 imperative by the military profession, to be no more than the ancient 

 fashion of riding which was common with our ancestry. In. language, 

 manners, costume, or in any of the many things which mark & people^ s 

 advance, fixedness has not been allowed to check invention ; but, where 

 improvement was most needed, not only to ameliorate the condition of 

 the slave, but to confirm the progression of man, by rendering impos- 

 sible those sights which degrade and which debase the reasoning faculty, 

 it has apparently been absent. The creature, during these years, has 

 altered in form, and has become milder in character. The spurs and 

 bits of former times are no longer in general use, because these are no 

 longer required. They assuredly were not 'cast aside from any con- 

 sideration for the life to coerce which they were employed, although a 

 simple regard for property may have banished such ready instruments 

 of torture and of injury. In justification of the foregoing remarks, the 

 portrait of the Marquis (only of a much reduced size) is inserted on the 

 next page. 



The lunging of the existing horse-breaker is obviously nothing beyond 

 that circular practice which constituted the chief portion of equine edu- 

 cation with our forefathers. It is in the book just named depicted over 

 and over again, until tho image, from repetition, grows tedious. It 



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