Fad and Fashion 207 



This is true in part only, for the humane societies 

 and the laws totally ignore the " banging " of tails, 

 which is equally inexcusable; the "pulling"' or "hog- 

 ging " of manes (as in polo ponies, etc.) ; the clipping 

 of the entire body of many horses, used at slow work, 

 simply because it is labour-saving so to do, etc. The 

 plain truth is that the Society itself is not practi- 

 cally managed in many ways; it is subject to attacks 

 of hysteria over trifling details ; its agents are in too 

 many cases not practical men, and their badges have 

 been used too frequently to procure cheap notoriety 

 under the guise of needful discipline. 



The operation of docking, in itself, is not 

 particularly painful, and while the minds of senti- 

 mentalists endow the proceeding with all sorts of 

 agonies and horrors, the plain truth is that hardly 

 any pain is evidenced by the subject, and not a few 

 horses have been docked and subsequently seared 

 over the stump with a hot iron while standing tran- 

 quil and unbound. The writer himself was, years 

 ago, " banging " a horse's tail with a keen razor, 1". e. 

 squaring the hair ; but finding blood upon his 



