PREFACE. 
WHEN laying the present volume before the public, the author 
cannot but feel he addresses two very opposite parties: one, and by 
far the larger portion of society, views the subject of which this 
book pretends to treat simply as a working machine, and regards all 
those who speak of the creature as endowed with intelligence or pos- 
sessed of sensibility as fanciful sentimentalists checked by no limit to 
assertion. The other class—a small, but a highly-educated and an 
influential section of the public—sees the matter in a very contrary 
light. In their ideas, the equine race, though endowed with voice, 
is not entirely without reason, but possessed of the keenest feelings 
and capable of the tenderest emotions. 
The last party, however, expect so little from living writers that 
probably they will be pleased with opinions which they may hail as 
an advance toward the truth. The first order of readers, however, 
the author cannot think to propitiate. Before the opening article is 
perused, one of these gentlemen will probably fling the volume aside 
with a sneer, and exclaim— 
“Why, what would this fellow have? Does he desire we should 
build hospitals for horses ?” 
To the unmformed mind such a question will suggest a preposter- 
ous image. But, when calmly considered, a hospital is perceived to 
be nothing more than a place where disease in the aggregate is 
cheaply treated, and the trouble or the expense of individual reme- 
dies thereby is prevented. A hospital for horses, sanctioned by gov- 
ernment, and honored with the highest patronage, does even now 
exist in the Royal Veterinary College of Camden Town. Such a 
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