108 HORSES: 



or taking it away, like mercury in a weather-glass "; 

 and his experience is confirmed by the general con- 

 dition of troopers' horses in contrast with those 

 of their officers, which are bedded down all day. 



But if there are evils for which grooms are, in large 

 measure, directly responsible, and the abolition of 

 which they would beyond doubt stoutly resist, there 

 are others in which masters are not less blameworthy 

 than their men, and from which the public generally, 

 as well as the animals, are constant sufferers. The 

 work of the horse is that of dragging and carrying, 

 and the aim of the owner should be the accomplish- 

 ment of this work with the utmost possible sureness 

 and with the fewest accidents. Serious and fatal in- 

 juries may be the result of stumblings and slippings, 

 not less than of actual falls ; and the premature wear- 

 ing out of horses by excessive straining of their 

 sinews and muscles is a direct pecuniary loss to the 

 owners, although few of them seem to realize the 

 true significance of the fact. These evils are to be 

 seen everywhere, and they affect horses kept for the 

 purpose of pleasure and ostentation almost as much 

 as those which spend their days in a round of monot- 

 onous drudgery. A horse should not be obliged to 

 work in going down a hill, but, in fact, they are sub- 

 ject to the severest strain just when they ought to 

 have none, if they are harnessed to springless carts 

 or wagons without brakes. Farm horses suffer with 

 terrible severity from this cause, but the horses, used 

 in carrying-trades and by railway companies undergo 

 a more cruel ordeal. Improvements in the brake- 



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