so 



HORSES: 



them the next morning to a square meal of potato- 

 chips and cubes of fat mutton ; but as soon as one of 

 them had eaten his fill, he made the other stop, too. 

 Making sure that they had both consumed the same 

 quantity, Dog No. i was confined in a comfortable 

 kennel, while No. 2 had to run after the doctor's 

 coach, not at a breathless rate of speed, but at a fair, 

 £.risk trot, for two hours and a half. As soon as they 

 got home the coach-dog and his comrade were slain 

 and dissected ; the kennel-dog had completely di- 

 gested his meal, while the chips and cubes in the 

 coach-dog's stomach had not changed their form at 

 all ; the process of digestion had not even begun ! 

 "And," continues Dr. Oswald, from whose " Physical 

 Education" this incident is taken, "railroad laborers, 

 who bolt their dinner during a short interval of hard 

 work, had better pass their recess in a hammock. 

 Instead of strengthening them, their dinner will only 

 oppress them, till it is digested, together with their 

 supper, in the cool of the evening," or at night when 

 they are in bed, — the digestion being poorly done 

 'midst distressing and exhausting dreams. It is not 

 the evening meal which disturbs the troubled sleeper ; 

 it is rather the three loads in the same barrel that 

 "kick." 



It does not follow from this that a horse may not 

 be harnessed soon, or immediately after eating, when 

 occasion calls, with the probability that no harm will 

 result, provided the pace be moderate, and due care 

 be taken not to overdrive. The digestion of a meal 

 may often be delayed, however undesirable as a rule, 



