FEEEDOM FROM STCr:NrBLING. 117 



villages of the United States, as compared with those of similar 

 Englisli localities. In this country a broken knee is one of the 

 rarest blemishes, if not the very rarest, one ever encounters in the 

 horse. Of horses let for hire in England, nnless it be by a few 

 crack livery-keepers in London, in the Univ^ersities, and in one or 

 two other of the most important towns in hunting neigliborhoods, 

 a majority are decidedly broken-kneed. Nor is it at all unusual 

 to meet perilous stumblers, even from gentlemen's stables, and 

 in the case of animals whose appearance would indicate any 

 tiling but liability to so manifest and disqualitying a fault. I 

 have had in my life several heavy falls on the road in England, 

 from my horse coming down with me on a trot, when, from the 

 character of the horse, I should have expected any thing else ; 

 and it is needless to add that the roads in Great Britain, as a 

 general thing, are infinitely better, freer fi-om ruts, stones, or 

 other obstacles, than those of the United States ; while in this 

 country I have never had a horse stumble with me in harness, 

 and but twice under the saddle, one of wliich was easily recov- 

 ered, while the other, which fell outright, was a notorious blun- 

 derer, and, I think the only broken-kneed horse I have met in 

 America. 



I ascribe the immunity of the horse, on this side of the At- 

 lantic, tVom this tault, first, to the fact that both the pisturc- 

 lands and the roads are far roughei-, more broken in surface, 

 and more interrupted by stumps, stones and other obstacles, 

 hei-e, than in the longer cultivated and more finished countries 

 of Europe ; which teaches young hoi-ses to bend their knees, 

 and throw their legs more freely while playing with their dams 

 in the field, and also to lift and set down their feet with far 

 greater circumspection, even on our great thoroughfares, many 

 of which are scarcely superior to a French cross-road, and few 

 of which are equal to an English one, especially in the autumn 

 or in the spring, when the frost is coming out of the ground. 

 Secondly, I think it may be attributed to the higher blood and 

 breed of the gentlemen's riding horses in England, which are 

 often cantering thoroughbreds, or at worst four or five-part-bred 

 hacks, and from their blood liable to be daisy-cutters and un- 

 safe goers on the road ; and lastly, to the well-known circum- 

 stance that most of the hired horses, posters, and casual road- 



