MORAL APATHY HYPOCRISY FIGGING AND FIRING. 187 



a paramount attention from all classes ; and that men could spend half the day at 

 Church or Conventicle, and retire utterly void of the apprehension that cruelty to a 

 brute, is unjust and criminal ! But what a national disgrace are these practices in 

 England, and in the nineteenth century ! We say the disgrace is national, and the 

 nation itself responsible, for were it not for the general indifference, and apathy on 

 such matters or must we say the general interested hypocrisy, and moral corrup- 

 tiona few barbarous, white-livered, and felonious rascals, who richly deserve the 

 utmost stretch of the lex talionis, would not dare to perpetrate such atrocities. It 

 is a consolation that, we can aver there are some men concerned in horses, who have 

 hearts. A stable-keeper of great respectability, a man who * is merciful to his 

 beast,' lately assured us, that a Dealer within his knowledge, was in the habit of 

 causing broken glass to be nailed between the shoe and pared hoof of those horses 

 in the above predicament, of being lame with one foot. Our friend would not 

 disclose this dealer's name, or we would have blazoned it to the World, that wher- 

 ever our pages extended, the miscreant's infamy might be known and accursed. 

 The subject is horrible to view in all its bearings a generous animal, endowed 

 with high sensibility, first of all lamed, most probably by unfair usage as a re- 

 compense, put to the torture ! then doomed to receive, as a matter of course, the 

 additional torture of the whip and spur, to extort almost impossible exertions from 

 him. Men through ignorance, and the influence of custom, which seems to take 

 away all sense but of itself, commit the greatest crimes, to appearance uncon- 

 sciously. To the hardened delinquents, who may chance to look into our book, we 

 recommend useful reflectionlet them ruminate on the writhings and tortures under 

 the accident of a broken limb, which may probably be their own case, and pause 

 before they inflict torture on an animal, which can feel as acutely as themselves- 

 let them reflect on the horrors of a death-bed, to him, whose too faithful memory 

 may recall the appalling vision of a life void of mercy, spent in perpetrating cruel- 

 ties on helpless and innocent animals. We have often wondered that, executioners 

 can be found in Countries, where the insane atrocity of torture, is practised upon 

 criminals we wonder also, how it can be possible to find a blacksmith beast 

 enough, coolly and deliberately to fasten a plug of iron, against the exquisitely 

 sensible quick of a poor horse's foot. No Gentleman, or conscientious proprietor of 

 horses, informed of the fact, should ever afterwards employ such a rascal. 



We should infringe a duty we hold indispensable we should betray a trust, 

 since our labours on this subject, have long since been accepted by the Public- 

 were we to pass over another enormity, which we indeed denounced many years 

 since, but which we fear has increased, and is now practised to a horrible and 

 disgusting degree. We allude to the firing, that is exciting to action, the poor 

 worn down Stage-Horses, when exposed to sale. This is done by the severest 

 tortures of the whip : and, it is heart-breaking to the generous of heart, and more 

 especially to the lovers of the horse, to see the aged steed worn down with cruel 



