482 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
understood, or had had any experiences of such translation s, 
that there was little to fear in removing horses from warm 
situations into cold ones, but a great deal to fear in the 
converse of this; and particularly should any foulness be 
permitted to ally its effluvia with the changed and compara- 
tively close atmosphere of the stable. Of anything of this 
kind, however, no mention whatever was made or even 
hinted at, — a proof to us that veterinary hands could have 
had nothing to do with framing so one-sided and contrary 
an order. After all, however, the warning proved of no 
avail ; for, during what warm weather there was, and so long 
as the wind was still, the tented stables were found to be 
even closer and warmer than those the horses had just left. 
The camp stables erected for the cavalry consisted of 
oblong sheds, having sloping canvass roofs, and sides 
thatched with the branches and cuttings of the fir trees, the 
trunks or poles of which furnished pillars of support to the 
temporary fabric. To serve to fasten the horses up to, by 
the means of their head collar-chains, posts with hooks or 
rings fixed to their tops, called £i piquet posts,” were driven 
into the ground, along the summits of which, through the 
rings, was extended a rope of sufficient thickness and 
strength to hold the horses linked to it by their head collar- 
chains. The posts, with the ropes, were four feet in height, 
and the stables’ whole dimensions were 30 yards in length 
by lo yards in breadth, containing 30 horses each, allowing 
3 feet standing breadth for each horse, which afforded barely 
room enough for men to go up alongside to feed and groom 
them, and to pass along behind the horses. There were two 
rows of piquet posts along the middle of the stable, with 
double ropes, to which the horses were fastened in such 
manner as to stand face to face, with about four feet of 
interval between them, and sufficient space behind them 
to admit of narrow passage through the stable. This plan 
of fastening up the horses was found objectionable, not only 
on the score of the piquet posts being insecure in the ground, 
and so being frequently drawn out by the horses, but also 
from the liberty which tying so low, together with their 
length of collar- chain, gave the horses of kicking and biting 
one another. This was in a measure remedied by running a 
