40 LADIES ON HOESEBACK. 



field are thrown down by their riders ; this is 

 a fact too obvious to be contradicted. Men 

 over-riding their horses, treating them with 

 needless cruelty, riding them when already 

 beaten : these are the fruitful causes of falls in 

 the field, together with that most objection- 

 able practice of striving to "lift " an animal 

 who knows his duties far better than the man 

 upon his back. It is a pity, and my heart has 

 often bled to see how the noblest of God's 

 created things is ill-treated and abused by the 

 human brute who styles himself the master. 

 It is, indeed, a disgrace to our humanity that 

 this priceless creature, given to a man with a 

 mind highly wrought, sensitive, yearning for 

 kindness, and capable of appreciating each 

 word and look of the being whose willing slave 

 it is, should be treated with cruelty, and in too 

 many cases regarded but as a sort of machine 

 to do the master's bidding. Who has not seen, 

 and mourned to see, the tired, patient horse, 

 spurred and dragged at by a remorseless rider, 

 struggling gamely forward in the hunting- 

 field, with bleeding mouth and heaving, bloody 

 flanks, to enable a cruel task-master to see 



