10 HORSES: 



flict between the two needs ; we are all able to eat 

 too much and too often, and incline to serve our ani- 

 mals in the same manner. These things we do, what- 

 ever else is sacrificed or neglected. Even '' hard 

 cases," men who have not the means to purchase 

 a good animal — that is, a valuable one — and who 

 consequently are seen driving rawny-boned, consump- 

 tive creatures, and win the name of starving them — 

 even these, as I have found upon diligent inquiry, 

 often take scrupulous care to feed three times a day, 

 and to give their poor dyspeptic horses more food 

 than they can possibly digest. They do this, all the 

 more because appearances are against them, and if it 

 does not come to their ears, they feel sure that their 

 neighbors and all who pass or meet them on the road, 

 are saying something about " post-meat." 



If some gentlemen's driving-horses had more of 

 this sort of diet — outdoor air and freedom from sur- 

 feit — they would not so soon fall into the hands of 

 " five-dollar jockeys." How often our eyes are pained 

 at the sight of what was once a horse to be proud 

 of, and whose owner really delighted in him, drag- 

 ging himself along, and looking as if it would be a 

 mercy to end his life. His old owner speaks of the 

 case sorrowfully, and says, "When I owned ^Jim' 

 he never looked like that ; he got all he could eat, 

 and I never overworked him." He doesn't add the 

 further fact that under his treatment the horse begun 

 to decline, and at an age, too, when he should have 

 been in his prime, and that he put him away in con- 

 sequence ! Although the horse has many advantages 



