PREFACE. ll 
master £15 yearly; while the animals working for the queen, and 
drawing carriages not conspicuous for lightness, if bought originally 
for a like sum, would not cost more than £1 per annum. The con- 
trast is certainly startling. But to perfect it, there remain to picture 
the sorry jade which was formerly harnessed to the public chaise, 
and the stately creature which, in all the delight of beauty, accom- 
panies Royalty to the Parliament House. 
But there are other items to be considered before the opposite 
accounts can be fairly placed one against the other. A post-house 
generally was a pest-house. The miserable inhabitants of such a build- 
ing did not suddenly die off, but, like other things, horses rocked to 
and fro before they fell. The closing scene of life was heralded by many 
fits of sickness, each of which was of varying duration. Were we to 
reckon the money which loss of services abstracted, the extra cost of 
those attentions which are imperative when health is failing, and the 
hard cash paid for veterinary assistance, very probably a far wider 
distance than at first glance is apparent would divide the Royal 
Mews from the sheds which used to form a part of every large 
roadside hotel. 
In the writer’s conviction, humanity toward animals should be 
more commonly practiced—if not from any higher motive, because it 
is certainly the truest economy. To make this fact plain is the in- 
tention of the present publication. To prove that horses are gifted 
with something beyond the mere sensation which is common to all 
moving things is the object of the present work. To convince the 
public, by appealing to the eye and to the understanding through the 
means of engravings and of letter-press, that. the equine race inherit 
higher feelings than the vast majority of mankind are prepared to 
admit, is the purpose of the book now in the hands of the reader. 
To demonstrate how closely nature has associated man and horse in 
their liabilities and in their diseases—to induce men, by informing 
their sympathies, to treat more tenderly the timid life which is dis- 
posed to serve and is also willing to love them—is the highest 
reward the author of the following pages can picture to himself. 
When making the foregoing acknowledgments, the author does not 
affect to disdain that recompense which is the due of every person 
