G64 CATTLE AND HORSE INSURANCE. 
8th. Inflamed lungs and bowels, and haemorrhage from the 
liver. 
9th. Inflammatory affections of the air-passages. 
10th. Under 4 and above 12. 
11th. Cannot at present reply, but will endeavour to ascertain 
soon from one or two horse proprietors. 
Mr. Hales, of Oswestry, stands next : — 
1 do not know that I can give you any very satisfactory answer 
to your queries respecting horses, but I will do so as well as I can. 
I must, however, premise, that it appears to me there- will be great 
difficulty in effecting insurances on horses, and for this reason, — 
that for one that is destroyed by death, there are twenty that be- 
come comparatively valueless from lameness, blindness, broken 
wind, and other ills that horse-flesh is heir to : many of these are 
sent to the tan-yard, and this applies more especially to horses 
of the greatest value. A cart-horse may be able to do his work 
with these inflictions, but a racer, hunter, or a hack, could not. For 
instance, a gentleman insures his hunter for £100. He takes 
him out and irrecoverably lames him, and yet the horse may live 
for many years, but not be worth £10. The insurer must either 
discontinue the insurance and be out of pocket what he has paid 
and have his horse spoiled, or he must continue paying on to the 
term of his natural life ; for I suppose if he is destroyed the insur- 
ance is forfeited : without, therefore, you can have tables calculated 
for accidents and diseases not affecting life, but usefulness and 
value, I am inclined to think that you may, at first, not make as 
much of insuring horses as you could wish ; but with cattle the 
thing is very different*. 
1st, 2d, 3d. I shall put your first three queries together, as I 
think there is little difference as to the duration of life in agricul- 
tural horses ; those used occasionally for other purposes, and in 
carriage horses and hacks, with the exceptions you name, and con- 
sider the average may be safely taken at from 12 to 15 years. 
4th. A horse would not be considered a thorough-bred hunter 
before he was 5 or 6 years old, and, providing he dies a hunter, he 
may average 12 or 14 years of age ; but there is not one in half a 
dozen that remains to that age in a hunting stable, if alive. 
Stallions (by which, I presume, you mean covering stallions) 
live to an age from 12 to 14 years, but are apt to go blind. 
5. The lives of mares are quite as good as horses, with the ex- 
ception of brood mares in or near the period of parturition ; but 
* These are very important considerations, and should receive their due 
weight. 
