CHAPTER XII. 
LIMBS—THEIR ACCIDENTS AND THEIR DISEASES. 
OSSEOUS DEPOSITS—SPAVIN. 
“OnkE horse could wear out two pairs of legs,” is an old jockey’s 
phrase. Most men, when purchasing a dumb slave, pay great attention 
to the lower extremities. If an animal be used up or has performed 
hard work, the indications are sure to be found on those parts; but 
what a comment does the language and the act referred to pass upon 
the conduct of those masters, the history of whose treatment, or rather 
A PARK NAG WITH BONE SPAVIN LED OUT OF THE STABLE. 
whose abuse of a living creature, is thus sought for and often found 
upon a breathing frame! 
Before the strength has departed, or the legitimate number of years 
are exhausted, cruelty deprives a most obedient drudge of its power to 
serve. The history of almost every horse in this kingdom is a struggle 
to exist against human endeavors to deprive it of utility. Nature, when 
she made the animal, formed a creature hardly second to her master-piece 
in anatomical perfection; the legs are strong, but, in his impatience and 
in his blind obedience to the dictates of fashion, man wll put them to 
(286) 
