Chapter VIII 



MOUTHS AND MANNERS 



WITHOUT manners of the best, 

 neither man nor horse is fit for 

 polite society ; and as the one may 

 be judged by the words which fall 

 from his lips, so may the other by the moisture 

 which anoints his bars and mouth angles ; for if 

 one would keep the horse's mouth alive and sen- 

 sitive, beware the period when moisture disap- 

 pears, and saliva ceases to be in evidence, — a 

 lubrication intended by nature to facilitate in just 

 such ways the comfort of the animal. Without 

 manners, the biped is reduced to the level of the 

 aborigine, the quadruped to that of the wild 

 beast, in degree equal to their respective deficien- 

 cies in such respects. In view of the constantly 

 increasing number of horse shows, it is curious 

 that so little attention is paid to these points ; or 

 that, when these requirements are insisted upon, 

 they form an unimportant detail under the cap- 



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