9fi THE DIFFERENT BREEDS OF ENGLISH HORSES. 



common carriage horse : indeed, Cleveland, and the Vale of Pickering in the 

 East Riding of Yorkshire, may be considered as the most decided breeding 

 countries in England for coach-horses, hunters, and hackneys. The coach-horse 

 is nothing more than a tall, strong, over-sized hunter. The hackney has many 

 of the qualities of the hunter on a small scale. 



Whether we are carrying supposed improvement too far, and sacrificing 

 strength and usefulness to speed, is a question not difficult to resolve. The rage 

 for rapid travelling was introduced by the improvement in the speed of the racer, 

 and for a while it became the bane of the postmaster, the destruction of the 

 horse, and a disgrace to the English character. 



The stages were then twelve, sixteen, or even twenty miles ; the horses stout 

 and true, but formed for, and habituated to, a much slower pace ; and the increase 

 of two, and even four, miles an hour, rendered every stage a scene of continuous 

 barbarity, and speedily thinned the stables of the post and stage master. The 

 post-horse has not to the present moment altogether escaped from the system of 

 barbarity to which he was subjected. He is not expressly bred for his work — 

 that work is irregular — the pace is irregular — the feeding and the time of rest 

 uncertain — and the horse himself, destined to be the victim of all these means of 

 annoyance and suffering and impairment of natural power, is not always or often 

 either speedy or stout. The coachmaster, on a large scale, has, however, learned, 

 and, generally speaking, follows up a system at once conducing to his own profit, 

 and the health and comfort and prolonged labour of his horse. He buys a 

 good horse, " one that has," in the language of the highest authority in these 

 matters, " action, sound feet and legs, power and breeding equal to the nature and 

 length of the ground he will have to work upon, and good wind, without which 

 no other qualification will long avail in fast work*." He feeds him well — he 

 works him but little more than one hour out of the four-and-twenty — he rests 

 him one day out of every five — he has everything comfortable about him in his 

 stable — and by these means, that which was once a life of torture is one of 

 comparative, or even positive enjoyment. This is now the case in large and 

 well-conducted concerns, and where the eye of the master or the confidential 

 manager overlooks and directs all. 



In other establishments, and in too many of them, there is yet much animal 

 suffering. The public has to a very considerable extent the power to distin- 

 guish between the two, and to uphold the cause of humanity. 



Reference has been made to the dreadful operations which the new system of 

 horse management has introduced. The cautery lesions are more numerous 

 and severe than they used to be, in too many of our establishments. The 

 injuries of the feet and legs are severe in proportion to the increased pace and 

 labour, for where the animal machine is urged beyond its power, and the 

 torture continues until the limb or the whole constitution utterly fails, the 

 lesions must be deep, and the torture must be dreadful, by means of which the 

 poor slave is rendered capable of returning to renewed exertion. 



There is no truth so easily proved, or so painfully felt by the postmaster, at 

 least in his pocket, as that it is the pace that Mils. A horse at a dead pull, or at 

 the beginning of his exertion, is enabled, by the force of his muscles, to throw a 

 certain weight into the collar. If he walks four miles in the hour, some part of 

 that muscular energy must be expended in the act of walking ; and, conse? 

 quently, the power of drawing must be proportionably diminished. If he trot 

 ten miles in the hour, more animal power is expended in the trot, and less 

 remains for the draught ; but the draught continues the same, and, to enable 

 him to accomplish his work, he must tax his energies to a serious degree. Skil- 

 ful breeding, and high health, and stimulating food, and a very limited time of 



* Nimrod on the Chase, the Road, and the Turf, p. 98. 



