Homes for Horses 243 



haps he will also be made legally so. If he buy 

 and sell as a business, and animals are in his pos- 

 session only transiently, of course the case is dif- 

 ferent, but still he should use all due care to ensure 

 his property a satisfactory home and a capable owner. 



The consumer, so to speak, is, however, in the 

 position of guardian to his defenceless dependent, 

 and surely there must be some reckoning if he fail 

 in his trust; or if he accept a few miserable dollars 

 for a pitiful relic which deserves at his hands at 

 least a painless end. 



Men say they cannot bear to kill an animal, and in 

 the same hour condemn one to worse than death, 

 by disposing of him to a heartless brute who finds, as 

 he often acknowledges, that it is " cheaper ter drive 

 a boss day and night until he dies than ter bother 

 ter care for him ; if he costs twenty-five dollars and 

 lives twenty-five days, it's more economical than to 

 hire one at a dollar and a half per day." Nor are 

 such heartless proceedings unknown among the 

 ranks of the users of cheap horses, and many an one 



