40 A SUBJECT FOR MAZEPPA ? S PUNISHMENT. 



and I will be as vociferous in the three times three, 

 and again, again, again, as the loudest of you all. 



That fox or stag hunting is the frequent cause 

 of a great deal of cruelty and suffering to horses 

 is quite clear ; that is, when they get into certain 

 hands. I have some years since seen the Hon. 

 Mr. P. with his horse spurred from shoulder to 

 flank, and that because, from want of common 

 sense and judgment in the early part of the day, he 

 had beaten a good horse before it was half over. If 

 this is not cruelty I do not know what is. Depend 

 upon it the man who would be guilty of it towards 

 his horse would be equally the brute to his wife or 

 child. God forbid he should ever have the one or the 

 other ! Let no man tell me that enthusiasm in the 

 chase is an excuse for premeditated and wanton 

 cruelty. I maintain it to be wanton cruelty to 

 butcher a good horse, when the only plea we can 

 produce for so doing is a wish to see more of 

 the end of the run, as if a man could never see 

 another during his life. I can assert from experi- 

 ence and observation and have had no small share 

 of the former, or want of opportunity for the latter 

 in these matters that I never knew one of these 

 real butchering riders in the field who was not a 

 brute in all his relative connections with society. 

 Let it not be supposed that I mean in any way to 

 infer that riding straight to hounds necessarily 

 involves cruelty to a hunter ; quite the contrary. I 

 am perfectly satisfied, and I am sure the best judges 

 in these matters will agree with me, that the man 

 who rides straightest to hounds, generally speaking, 

 distresses his horse the least : he keeps near enough 

 to watch the leading hound, or couple or two of 



