222 THE HORSE AND HIS EIDER. 



ing their tails, burning their sinews with red hot irons, 

 dividing and cutting out a portion of a nerve, with other 

 excruciating operations on young horses, under which 

 they are often heard to squeal from pain are inflicted 

 on them, to comply with either a useless as well as a 

 barbarous fashion ; or to enable them " to go for another 

 season's hunting ; " or to make them " sound enough to 

 sell ; " or for the attainment of conveniences of which 

 the horse derives not the smallest share: and as the 

 high-bred, broken-down hunter has no voice to ask for 

 mercy, as he cannot boast of possessing reason, as he 

 has inherited no knowledge, as he has no power to 

 bequeath any, as his whole energies have been devoted 

 to the service and enjoyments of man, by whose mechanical 

 contrivances he is now " cast" with his four feet shackled 

 together, lying prostrate on a heap of straw ; just before 

 the red-hot iron sears his over-strained sinews, or the 

 sharp knife is inserted into his living flesh surely, in a 

 civilized country like England, some high power should be 

 authorized to exclaim, not "Woodman, spare that tree!" 

 but "Sportsman, SAVE that horse!" by chloroform, from 

 the agonising torture to which you have sentenced 

 him ! 



You are a man of pleasure : save him from unneces- 

 sary pain. You are a man of business : inscribe in that 



