342 SYSTEM OF KENNEL AND 



CHAPTER XL. 



Biding a willing horse to deatli — General bad treatment of the equine 

 race — Meeting of the four winds — George Tracy gets a quid pro 

 quo — Will Headman on turf — Jem and his thoroughbred — The 

 old squire, John Staveley — Scurry from a gorse-brake over the 

 open downs. 



Will Headman's prognostications became facts on 

 the following morning, when three dead horses were 

 brought to the kennel, victims to the ignorance and 

 merciless conduct of their riders on the previous 

 day. Accidents, we know, will befall the best horse- 

 men and hunters, and we know also that horses 

 will do their utmost to live with hounds as long as 

 they are able to do so ; but to whip and spur a 

 beaten horse to death is a decided act of cruelty, 

 which no man possessing a particle of pity would 

 perpetrate. The majority of mankind, we are obliged 

 to confess — and, we are grieved to add, the majority 

 of womankind also — regard horses more in the light 

 of steam-engines than animals composed of flesh 

 and blood, heart and lungs, like ourselves. We have 

 known ladies — many very kind, affectionate, com- 

 passionate beings in social life; philanthropic, saint- 

 like in their intercourse with the fallen, or miserable, 

 or poor, or destitute — Sisters of Mercy, in fine — but 

 Proserpinish in regard to unfortunate horses when 

 linked to their carriage. Why is it ? How is it that 

 such inconsistencies are daily, hourly seen in the 



