SOME MEMORABLE MATCHES 343 



Austro-Hunoj-arian and German officers, to see 

 which batch of champions, and which particular 

 champion in each batch, would cover the distance 

 between Berlin and Vienna in the shortest time. 

 The Austro- Hungarians ' took the cake,' but there 

 was such an absence of proper conditions (no 

 equalization of weights having been established, 

 no allowance for advantage and disadvantage, 

 arising from conformation of the ground traversed, 

 having been made, and especially no precaution 

 having been taken to secure the fitness and 

 serviceability of both the riders and their poor 

 horses on their arrival), that, as the newspapers 

 said, the affair turned out to be ' a senseless sacri- 

 fice of horses and riders,' degenerated into a scene 

 of sickening cruelty, and proved nothing whatever 

 but the callous brutality of which civilized (which 

 seldom means much more than varnished) man- 

 hood is capable for the sake of winning a paltry 

 distinction. For days after the conclusion of the 

 match the newspapers contained the most 

 harassing details as to the atrocities which had 

 been practised upon the horses, and as to the 

 sufferings endured by many of those that survived 

 their task ; and the perusal of those details made 

 one blush to be a man. 



