THE HORSE. 133 



may be, constant as my visits have been at TattersalFs, 

 I never witnessed such a practice at that repository nor 

 at the Horse Bazaar. I remember to have seen the 

 proprietor of a repository, from whom I had expected 

 better things, whip an animal in the above mode, 

 until it fell down upon the stones; fortunately, or 

 unfortunately, it was able to get upon its legs again. 

 Since writing the above I regret to say, on dis- 

 gusting experience, that I have been paying an un- 

 merited compliment to the humanity of the present 

 day. The barbarous and revolting custom above 

 stigmatized, I fear, prevails in as great, perhaps a 

 greater degree than ever, among the persons referred 

 to, from the greater number of victims. The miser- 

 able objects of our road work, worn down to the 

 very dregs of existence and ability for labour, aged, 

 lame, blind, racked and strained in every nerve and 

 every joint, and the more miserable and deplorable 

 the case, the greater and the more lancinating the 

 severity, are by common custom, previously to being 

 offered for sale, exposed to the utmost torture that 

 can be inflicted by the whip, whether by force or the 

 horrible ingenuity of applying it to those parts of 

 the animal most susceptible of acute feeling. Abuse 

 and irritation begin in the stable, and the wretched, 

 intimidated, and apprehensive animal led out, his 

 mouth checked and torn at intervals by a severe bit, 

 is then assailed by a powerful fellow, who gives the 

 discipline of the whip with his utmost force. If it 

 be possible to adduce any thing partaking more of 

 cruelty and absurdity than this, it is the inadvertence 

 and apathy of the public thereto ; and even the opi- 



