TRAINING BY STARVATION 147 



mind that only a little over a century ago the 

 same method was employed with lunatics who 

 showed signs of insubordination. 



For the idea used to be — and it has not yet 

 quite died out — that a high temper must primarily 

 be the outcome of high feeding. We read that 

 upon one occasion Henry VII. commanded that 

 a horse he was to ride in a public procession be 

 left unfed for twenty-four hours, and as no reason 

 is assigned for the order we are justified in con- 

 jecturing that he must have felt inwardly nervous, 

 possibly that he feared the animal might, if fed 

 as usual, prove to be what we call to-day " a 

 handful " ! 



In other respects the horses of some four 

 hundred years ago would seem to have been 

 treated at any rate with ordinary humanity. 



