362 The Book of the Horse. 



very satisfactory to the distinguished owners, who have not the least idea that their horses 

 are enduring agonies for hours. 



The result is shown by degrees in foaming, bleeding mouths, lolling tongues, roaring, 

 spavins, restiveness — results to which less attention is paid because the greater number of the 

 finest carriage-horses are jobbed, and job-masters are at the mercy of the " bad coachman." 



Mr. Edward Flower, of Hyde Park Gardens, well known when he lived at Stratford-on- 

 Avon as one of the hard-riding heavy weights of the Warwickshire Hunt, has agitated this 

 question for some time, with that exaggerated enthusiasm which is essential if any deep-seated 

 grievance is to be reformed. No great reform, from the time of Martin Luther to Clarkson 

 and Wilberforce, has ever been effected by cautious advocates and soft suggestions. 



Mr. Flower has particularly directed his attention to the iniquities of the gag bearing-rein, 

 which may daily be seen in torturing operation in the best carriages in the height of the season, 

 even in the carriages of the noble vice-presidents, patrons^, and patronesses of the Royal 

 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 



There is not the least doubt that a bit of moderate proportions is, with a properly-fitted 

 curb-chain, sufficient to restrain and drive, in the best form, any average horse. But as an 

 ounce of fact is admitted to have more weight than a pound of rhetoric, I will quote the 

 following example of Mr. Flower's experience: — "I bought," he says, writing in 1874, "some 

 years ago, a magnificent horse at the hammer for a mere song, with the character of being a 

 roarer, a gibber, and a rearer. He had been driven with a gag bearing-rein drawn up as tight 

 as flesh would bear, and a bit weighing one pound fourteen ounces, eleven inches long in the 

 cheek, and six inches long in the mouth. I took away the bearing-rein altogether — he 

 naturally carried his head and neck magnificently — and substituted for the instrument of torture 

 a simple ' Liverpool bit.' The roaring ceased soon after the bearing-rein was taken away ; the 

 bit and harness having been made easy, he ceased to pull, became docile, and grand in all his 

 paces, and I might easily have had a profit of ^f 150 on my purchase. I now drive him in my 

 phaeton with a young horse broken on my own plan. I drive them in town and country, and 

 they both obey the slightest touch of the reins." 



It is necessary, however, to add that very good and humane coachmen object to the 

 Liverpool bit for horses driven in pairs, because the action of the inside reins is likely to 

 drive the upper part of the steel check into the horse's cheek when hard held. 



In relation to the abuse of the bearing-rein, drivers should be reminded that although 

 with the great majority of horses the conformation of the jaws opposes no obstacle to the head 

 assuming the most desirable position, this is not always the case ; if the space contained 

 between the two jaws is narrowed so as to prevent the neck fitting in, as it will in a perfectly 

 well-shaped head, he cannot bend his head into the curve we require to obtain the more 

 perfect control over, and the best appearance in, a riding or carriage horse. In such cases, to 

 try to make a horse bend his neck by the action of a bearing-rein is something like trying 

 to straighten a limb with a stiff joint. 



Again, there are certain glands which lie just under the angles of the two jaws, and run 

 up in the direction of the ear. They are the seat of the affection, to wiiich all young animals 

 are subject, called strangles. Sometimes these glands are naturally very large ; sometimes they 

 become large as the result of disease ; sometimes they become inflamed and enlarged from a 

 driver attempting to obtain an impossible curve of the neck by bearing-reins and severe bits. 



The agony of the animal under such pressure is excruciating; to get rid of the intolerable 

 paui it will lie down, rear, kick, run away, and the ignorant brute on the coach-box knows no 



