CRIMINAL ANIMALS 
33 1 
prevailed on them to spare him, lying down on his 
back and putting up his feet, as a puppy will when a 
big dog approaches him. 
It is more difficult to account for the extreme 
viciousness of certain horses, creatures which have 
no hereditary tendency to cruelty, like the dog, 
whose ancestor, the wild hunting dog, is perhaps the 
most ferocious creature in the world. What, for 
instance, are we to say of an animal like “ General 
Chasse,” which commenced the day, when being led 
to York, by kneeling on his groom and trying to 
tear him to pieces, until a squad of labourers charged 
him, armed with sticks and forks ? Or of u Merlin,” 
who was obliged to be double chained to the rack in 
the painting-room when his portrait was taken by 
Mr. Herring, and afterwards made use of his liberty 
by killing his groom ? Another horse could only be 
groomed during several seasons by a series of well- 
timed dashes with a birch-broom. 
“ King Pippin,” a celebrated Irish horse, which ran 
early in the century, had a habit of rushing at and 
worrying any person who came within reach as he 
was being saddled, and if he had a chance would get 
his head round, seize his rider by the leg, and pull 
him off his back. When brought to the Curragh to 
run, no one would put a bridle on his head. A 
countryman volunteered to do so, when the horse 
caught him by the chest, shaking him as a dog does 
a rat. “ Fortunately for the poor fellow,” wrote an 
eye-witness of the scene, “ his body was very thickly 
