ON THE RATIONALE OF CLIPPING. 
19 
is now so fresh and above himself, that I can scarcely hold him 
when eight-and-forty hours previously he felt in his own mind 
persuaded that lie was a fit candidate only for an infirmary. Now 
here is a great mystery, which I think as yet has not been suffi- 
ciently explained or accounted for, and therefore I intend humbly 
to offer a few ideas of my own on this very interesting subject. 
All writers, I believe, both ancient and modern, are agreed that 
the skin of the horse is a gland, and, as such, a most extensive 
secretory surface. From the skin also arises the hair, each separate 
hair having its bulb or root, and, according to microscopic obser- 
vation, being deemed a hollow tube. 
I learn from Muller’s human physiology, that “the bulb of the 
hair in man consists of the soft part of the hair, and the pulp within 
it. The bulb is club-shaped, and thicker than the rest of the hair. 
The pulp is gradually lost in the medullary substance of the hair; 
the substance of the hair is formed by the secretion of horny matter 
on the surface of the conical vascular pulp.” 
Now, just in proportion to the length of these innumerable hair 
tubes, in that exact ratio does the horse experience distress when 
perspiration is brought about, either by muscular exertion out of 
doors or in a stable at a high temperature, under the ordinary weight 
of clothing; simply owing to the vapour of perspiration becoming con- 
densed by the obstruction offered, not only by its inordinate length, 
but also an abnormal quantity. By shortening, however, the hairy 
covering, a vapour only is readily exhaled, to the incalculable com- 
fort of the animal under the most trying exertion, his respiration 
appearing much less accelerated, and the slight indication of damp 
on the surface of his body assuming a dry genial warmth in a few 
minutes, and not unfrequently without the least friction having been 
used for that object. Of course I am not unmindful of a fact worthy 
of observation, that hunters not thorough-breds are to be met with 
in first-rate establishments, where no labour is spared by the really 
working groom to exhibit them at the covert side with short coats, 
shewing a highly polished surface, and without the aid of clipping ; 
but how so accomplished ] in nine out of every ten instances, the 
pains-taking and industrious groom has closely watched the earliest 
growth of hair, then amounting only to down, and has skilfully ap- 
plied his spirits of wine flame as a preventive to the hair arriving 
at any length to cause him unnecessary labour. Hence, also, the next 
best substitute for clipping presents itself, although somewhat tedi- 
ous, and certainly not so summary a process, and, if unattended to in 
the early stage of the growth of hair, fails altogether in the object 
so much sought after. Imagine the sporting Peer, at the meet by 
the covert side, mounted on his five-hundred-guineas-hunter, for 
although clipped he deigns to ride him ; now mark the silent and 
