DECEMBER 259 



Now, though declining to admit that the lower 

 animals enjoy inherent rights, I would be the last to 

 deny or evade our obligations to them. I would be 

 glad if the Legislature would confer more rights upon 

 them than it has already done. The supersession of 

 horse-drawn carriages by automobiles has well-nigh rid 

 the London streets of the scandal of tight bearing- 

 reins. But there remains the crying evil of the docking 

 of horses' tails that is, hacking several vertebrae off 

 the prolongation of the spinal column. It had its rise 

 in the dark days when bull- and bear-baiting were 

 honoured by a place in the category of sport, rightly 

 now relegated by law to that of outrage. This 

 custom of docking was once universally applied to 

 English roadsters, hunters, and harness-horses. The 

 only useful purpose it ever served was in the Penin- 

 sular War, when British dragoons could be most easily 

 distinguished from French by their cock-tails. It fell 

 into disuse with the decline of road coaches, and we 

 owe its unwelcome revival to their partial restoration. 

 It is senseless, barbarous, and disfiguring; it inflicts 

 needless suffering upon brood-mares and horses turned 

 out to grass, depriving them of their natural defence 

 against flies, besides the severe pain and shock caused 

 by the operation itself. It should be discouraged in 

 every possible way by influential persons, by those 

 who lead the fashion in such things, and agricultural 

 societies should refuse prizes to exhibits which have 

 undergone this mutilation. It is strange that polo- 

 players should disfigure their mounts in this barbarous 



