74 
Useless7iess of Bearing-Reins. 
complains of, should be so lamentably conspicuous in a matter 
so constantly before our eyes in our towns, in our fields, in our 
crowded streets, in our rural lanes ; namely, our draught-horse 
appointments? It must be owned that one class — all honour, 
therelore, be to it — that of cab and omnibus proprietors, liave 
set a pood example in one respect, viz. in doing away with that 
hatelul instrument of torture the hcarinq-rein. But, alas ! in 
99 carts and waggons out of 100 (carts and waggons, which are to 
move at a slow and steady pace) we still persist in crippling un- 
necessarily our motive power, and gagging our unliappy horses 
by tying up their heads, as if in the very tyranny of wantonness. 
On the continent the bearing-rein is rarely used, and then only 
as a servile English imitation ; but in horse-rating, hunting, 
horse-loving England, it must be confessed its use is all but 
universal. In Yorkshire, in the midland counties, in the south- 
ern, up the steep hills near Scarborough as up the not less steep 
downs near Brighton, we may see heavy-laden waggons at all 
hours of the day dragged miserably along by horses — on one hand 
urged forward by ever-restless whipcord — on the other, as if in 
the veriest spirit of contradiction, curbed in by senseless bearing- 
reins ; and yet, if the attendant carter's attention be drawn to 
the imnatural cruelty of the proceeding, he generally appears 
fully alive to it. 
On seeing, the other day, a poor horse tugging a cart full of 
sand up the cliff at Brighton, of course witli liis head tied tightly 
to his back, we observed to a labourer near, What a shame 
not to undo the bearing-rein with such a load ! " Oh yes, sir," 
was the reply ; " 1 likes myself to see 'em free, but it's custom, 
sir, custom ; they thinks they looks well." However, it is to be 
feared the truth is, thought has little enough to do with it ; if 
people did think, the days of hearing-reins would soon be num- 
bered. The folly of the practice was, some years ago, very 
ably shown by Sir Francis Head, in his ' Bubbles, by an Old 
Man,' where he contrasted most unfavourably our English cus- 
tom of tying tightly up, with the German one of tying loosely 
down, and both with the French one of leaving the horse's head 
at liberty — fand a man of his shrewdness and observation, a dis- 
tinguished soldier, who has galloped across the South American 
Pampas, and seen there herds of untamed horses in all their 
native wildness and natural freedom, is no mean authority). 
Now, he has pointed out most clearly that when a horse has 
real work to do, whether slow work, as in our ploughs and carts, 
or quick, as in a fast gallop, or in headlong flight across the 
plains of America, nature tells him not to throw his head up 
and backwards towards his tail, but forwards and downwards, so 
as to throw his weight into what he is called upon to do. This 
