160 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 



and his ideas and education as a gentleman. Far 

 be it from me to assume the office of critic ; if I did, 

 the criticism would only amount to eulogy. I must, 

 however, in the character of a sportsman, venture the 

 surmise that Mr, Harrison's enthusiasm in the pur- 

 port of his essay, and in which, in a general way, I 

 cordially join, carries his reprehension to the extreme 

 point in designating steeple-chasing as a cruel and 

 ^arbarous sport, and the " torturing " of the animal : 

 that it is rendered often both cruel and barbarous, is 

 most true ; that it is often made the source of abso- 

 lute torture to the animal, I reluctantly, but truly, 

 admit. Our author's only somewhat erroneously 

 applied reprehension, I conceive to be this ; he 

 represents the sport to be in itself cruel and bar- 

 barous, whereas it is the owners and riders of the 

 horses that are so. Why I do not implicitly or 

 absolutely admit steeple-chasing to be in itself bar- 

 barous, arises from practical experience, that a high- 

 bred horse up to the weight he has to carry, and in 

 proper training for the feat, can certainly go over 

 four miles of any fair hunting country (if judiciously 



