MORAL RESPONSIBILITY. 201 



serious defects of character, brought about very likely by his 

 own improper usage. It is even righteous that farmers should 

 suffer loss by the decimating animal diseases that result 

 from their own neglect, ignorance, prejudice, or superstition. 

 Unfortunately the innocent must suffer with the guilty in 

 such cases. The farmer makes up his losses by the over- 

 charge of the public, to whom, moreover, he is only too apt 

 to supply bad flesh, milk, butter, and other animal produce 

 infected produce, in other words, that is the source of bound- 

 less misery and disease in man. It is a popular saying that 

 'all is fair in love and war,' to which may be added horse- 

 dealing. It has occurred to myself when, purchasing a pony, 

 I had trusted the assertion of the seller that it was free 

 from all faults of character to find, when too late, that it 

 had been quite notorious for its temper and its tricks, and 

 to be told by a certain army general, who was himself the very 

 soul of honour, that a man might be a gentleman in every- 

 thing save horse-selling. In the eyes of every honest man, 

 however, as well as, it is to be hoped, in the eye of the law, 

 the man who palms off a vicious, dangerous horse or dog as an 

 inoffensive one is a rogue, and deserves the severest punish- 

 ment of roguery, for he is indirectly the cause of much loss of 

 human life, of much injury, many accidents, to his fellow- 

 men. Where such losses of life occur he is virtually charge- 

 able with homicide, and should be dealt with as a homicide. 



