THE RIQUISITES OF A COLT-BREAKER. 345 



most useful but luuch-abused animal, the horse, 

 from the infliction of greater cruelties and hard- 

 ships than it is his lot still to bear. One would 

 suppose, from all the fuss and work which has 

 been made about breaking horses, that they were 

 just caught up from their wild state on the plains 

 of South America, instead of being quiet, sen- 

 sible, domestic animals, whose parents and pro- 

 genitors have been in bondage to man for centuries 

 past. 



Rough treatment will generally produce rough 

 tempers in boy or colt. Some horses are, no doubt, 

 more viciously disposed than others, but it is not 

 by harsh means that the worst-tempered are to be 

 reclaimed. Firmness, patience, and perseverance 

 are the necessary requisites in any man who pre- 

 tends to be a colt-breaker ; and by these the most 

 refractory animals may be subdued, without having 

 recourse to the objectionable modes recommended 

 by Mr. Rarey. There is an old saying, that 

 " hunger will tame a lion," and I remember to have 

 seen this verified, in a poor, wretched, half-starved 

 lioness, in a menagerie upon a small scale, where 

 deer, dogs, cats, and animals and birds of almost 

 every variety, were all huddled together in a small 

 comfortless yard in the New Road. The poor 



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