10 
REVIEW. 
lion productive of most agonizing pain,) with the mistaken 
view of removing disease in the foot ; no longer are horses’ 
mouths burnt with a red-hot iron, with the most absurd 
intention of giving them relief while cutting their teeth ; no 
longer are scalding hot oils poured into aching wounds, in 
order to “ get them to heal no longer, in fine, are prepos- 
terous measures like these, as full of cruelty as absurdity, 
either countenanced by horse-men or practised by Vete- 
rinarians. 
Whilst the Veterinarian is engaged in endeavours to furnish 
a salve for every wound, a balm for every pain, brute nature 
may become the subject of, he cannot shut his eyes to — nay, 
he must regard wfith peculiar satisfaction, the existence of a 
Society, which has for its whole, sole object, “The Preven- 
tion of Cruelty to Animals.” When the numberless obliga- 
tions come to be considered which our necessities and pleasures 
lay us under to animals, and particularly in a country like our 
own, where horses, and cattle, and sheep, constitute so 
large a share of our national wealth and prosperity, did 
not duty prompt us, interest would, not only to do what we 
could for them in the day of sickness or lameness, but to 
rescue them from cruelty and its treatment ; and it w T ould be 
well for the poor brute were human nature everywhere so 
constituted as to feel as men ought to feel for servants so 
useful and so devoted. Unfortunately, however, there are 
those in society whose feelings for the animal creation are 
bounded only by their own selfish requirements ; or by their 
love of exacting, or rather exhausting, the energies of their 
horses, to a degree and repetition that either disables or kills 
their wretched tools outright, or else cows them or cripples 
them for the remainder of their lives. 
The word “cruelty” admits of such latitude of definition, 
that we are afraid the meshes of this admirable Society’s net 
of apprehension must, for it to work, be too wide to catch very 
many real inflictors of cruelty, such as over-riders and over- 
drivers of horses, which, otherwise, might richly deserve 
punishment; in fact, the selection of cases for summons 
must constitute one of the Society’s difficulties of operation. 
