158 UNASKED ADVICE. 



severe^ there is no remedy. A stiff joint is tlie most 

 favourable ending tliat can possibly be hoped for^ and 

 that is not a termination that would please a master who 

 wished to use his horse for hunting. A broken neck 

 speaks for itself, either in the case of the horse or his 

 rider ; so does a broken back_, which is a case for merciful 

 destruction. But while on this subject, let me advise 

 young sportsmen to be sure that their horse^s back really 

 is broken before they have him destroyed. A horse may 

 fallj and lie for some time exactly as if his back were 

 broken^ when nothing of the sort is the case ; and there 

 are always lots of ^^ good natured friends '' about, who 

 are only too ready to put a horse " out of his pain/"* 

 ivhen he belongs to ^''another fellow." A horse whose 

 back is really broken I do not think suffers much, as he 

 is paralysed everywhere behind the fracture ; so it is no 

 great cruelty to wait until a competent opinion can be 

 had before proceeding to extreme measures. The test of 

 trying whether the prick of a pin can be felt by the 

 animal (of course behind the supposed place of injury) is 

 not infallible. I remember a case in point; and, indeed, 

 I pride myself upon my remarks being founded on actual 

 experience. It happened very many years ago — when the 

 young sportsmen, for whose benefit these lines are (with 

 all humility) intended were in their '^ berceaunettes," if 

 indeed they had made their appearance at all — at a 

 country steeplechase meeting (it was one then, but now it 

 would be a metropolitan one) a horse fell, and lay where 

 he fell. A grand chorus arose from the excited spec- 

 tators of " His back's broke ! Cut his throat ! '' (I don't 

 pretend to know whether the leaders of this demonstra- 

 tion had laid against the steed ; possibly so ; this occurred 

 in the dark ages ; we can now make ^^ a dead 'un/' with- 



