78 THE HUNTING-FIELD. 



little of undergoing the same in liis own person ; 

 but show him a suffering chilcl^ or a female treated 

 ■with brutality, his feeling in either case might be 

 found as soft as those of the most effeminate 

 being that boasts the form of man, and would 

 probably lead him to take a far more active and 

 commendable part than the latter in allaying the 

 sufferings of the one or advocating the cause of 

 the other. Let us then throw to the winds the 

 twaddle of the inane and spiritless, who term the 

 fox-hunter inhumane for sending his horse at a 

 fence that we will allow risks neck and limb : it 

 may be unnecessary risk, and we will, to please 

 some, call it so, but, at all events, it is not 

 selfish risk, for rider and horse share in the 

 danger. It is true, horses, that is, hunters, do go 

 now at an awful pace; but their condition enables 

 them to do it, and, as I have before said, I believe 

 they do it with as little distress as hunters did 

 their work fourscore years ago. Neither pace 

 nor fencing lays the fox-hunter open to any 

 charge of inhumanity to his horse. Inhumanity 

 is only shown where he perseveres with a horse 

 in distress. Here I will join issue with any one 

 in expressing unqualified disgust at such conduct ; 

 and the inhumanity would be just the same 

 whether it was shown towards so good an animal 

 as Brunette in a steeple- chase, Advance in a run 

 of Leicestershire, or a pursive cob in a ride from 



