346 
AMERICAN ACRICtTETURISl’. 
crosses is superior to most mutton, tender 
and delicious, making them a desirable ac¬ 
quisition to our food producing animals. The 
ease with which they are kept, living as they 
do on weeds, briers, browse, and other 
coarse herbage, fits them for many portions 
of our country where sheep could not be 
sustained to advantage; while their ability 
and disposition to defend themselves from 
the attacks of dogs, evidence a value pecu¬ 
liar to this race of animals. They are free 
from all diseases to which sheep are liable, 
hardy and prolific; and experience has 
proven that they readily adapt themselves to 
all portions of the United States.” 
HOUSES—THEIR CRUEL TREATMENT. 
TWO CASES IN ILLUSTRATION—THE HORSES’ 
PETITION. 
As we came to our office this morning, we 
saw at one of the wharves in the city a 
heavily laden cart, to which was attached a 
poor relic of what may once have been as 
noble and high spirited a steed as ever 
T oamed the pasture field. A wheel of the 
art had caught against a block which might 
have been easily moved out of the way, but 
the lazy inhuman jehu of a driver had mount¬ 
ed the already over-laden vehicle, and by 
loud vociferations and oaths was urging the 
scarcely animated creature onward. In 
vain the poor animal pulled, and backed and 
pulled again. Every bone and joint of his 
feeble frame seemed to crack under the ef¬ 
fort. What did the driver do? “ Why of 
course he got down, and thus lightening the 
load, moved the block away, and took hold 
of a spoke to assist his faithful servant.” No 
such thing! Infuriated by the ineffectual 
efforts of the horse, and by the sound of his 
own inhuman, fiendish cursings, he seized a 
cart rung (stake) and “ ca-thunk ” it came 
down upon the bony rump. Another and 
still another effort was repaid by a repetition 
of the blow. Heart sick at the sight we 
ventured a word of expostulation, and re¬ 
ceived—a horri,d imprecation—a call for 
heaven’s curse for our interference. “ The 
horse was his own, we’d better attend to our 
own business.” At the risk of feeling the 
rung upon our own head, we pushed the ob¬ 
struction aside and the horse started up the 
street, pulling along his unreasonable load, 
and his fiendish driver. And so he goes day 
after day, week after week and month after 
month, until he finally drops down dead, 
when a chain is fastened to his neck and 
his skin and bones, happily insensible to 
pain, are dragged over the cobblestone street 
to the boat and carried to “ barren island.” 
And what return does this horse receive 
during the long years of servitude. A scanty 
morning and evening feed of coarse hay, 
with perhaps a half peck of bran or shorts, 
when the thirsty appetite of his owner does 
not exhaust all the earnings of the day for 
drams. For a resting place he has a bleak, 
open stable, with the ground, or at best a 
filthy unlittered floor, to lie down upon. 
We wish the above truthful delineation of 
the hardships of one animal could be set 
down, as an isolated case. But unhappily 
this is not so. Hundreds of these faithful 
animals, both here and elsewhere, fare no 
better. There are, however, many noble 
exceptions among the cartmen of this city. 
There are hundreds who treat these dumb 
animals with all possible kindness. They 
are fed in the best manner, carefully housed 
and bedded at night, and on no account over 
loaded by day. Not long since we had H 
tons of paper landed upon the dock just at 
night, and called upon the nearest cartman 
to take it up to our office. We paid him for 
the job, and were not a little pleased to see 
him make two loads of it, remarking that 
“his horse could aisily take it all at once, 
but he had wrought hard all day and he 
would not over-load him to save a bit o’ time.” 
This was a humane feeling even though ex¬ 
ercised towards a dumb animal. The sleek 
coat and [elastic steps of that horse showed 
at once the character of his owner. But 
there are too few men of this class. Some of 
them at least read this journal and we take 
the liberty of suggesting that they can 
do something towards ameliorating the 
condition of horses. Why not get up a 
regular society having for its object “ Im¬ 
provement in the treatment of Working 
Horses.” We promise them all the aid that 
the daily, weekly and monthly journals 
under our care can afford them. 
Though we have, perhaps, said enough at 
this time, we cannot close without introduc¬ 
ing from an old Irish journal the following 
petition of the Dublin horses. It will do 
very well to substitute New-York, Boston, 
Buffalo, Albany, &c., for Dublin.— Ed. 
To the Honorable , the Corporation of the City 
of Dublin , the petition of sundry Horses in 
the said City, humbly sheweth, 
That your petitioners are conscious of the 
humble rank assigned them by their Creator, 
and that they cheerfully submit to the pre¬ 
eminence of man in the scale of animal be¬ 
ings, by yielding the labor of their lives for 
his benefit. 
That in return for this submission to the 
first of animals which inhabit our globe, they 
expect to be treated with justice and human¬ 
ity. 
That these two cardinal virtues, which are 
of universal obligation from man to beast, as 
well as from man to man, have been violated 
towards your petitioners in many particulars, 
of which they beg leave to lay a detail be¬ 
fore your honorable Board. 
Many of us, after having served as coach 
horses for fifteen or twenty years, are sold 
to carters, and compelled to drag loads of 
wood beyond our strength. Our failure is 
severely punished by being beaten in the 
most cruel manner, not only on our bodies 
and limbs, but on our heads, by which means 
many of us have lost the use of our eyes. 
The food we receive while in the hands of 
these our new masters, is scanty in quanti¬ 
ty, and by no means suited to the state of 
our teeth, which are both decayed and les¬ 
sened in number by the effects of age upon 
them. 
Many of your petitioners are compelled to 
work all the week, and instead of enjoying 
the benefit of rest on the Sabbath day, which | 
the Creator of the world intended equally for 
the benefit of man and beast, we are hired 
out to sailors and others who know nothing 
of the peculiar nature of our species, and 
who by hard riding and starving us, greatly 
impair our strength, and thereby render us 
unfit for the labor of the ensuing week. 
Many of us who are the property of citi¬ 
zens and kept in livery stables, and thereby 
we are so much injured in our strength as to 
disappoint the expectations of our masters, 
when we are called into their service. 
Many of us are kept idle during the week, 
and ridden only on Sundays, by which means 
we lose our health, for want of exercise, and 
afterwards are obliged, unwillingly, to share 
with our masters in the profanation of a day 
allotted to the beasts for rest, and to man 
for the public worship of his Maker. 
Many of us, who are used only as carriage 
horses, are taken out of warm stable s and ex¬ 
posed for two or three hours at the doors of 
gentlemen’s houses, at all hours of the even¬ 
ing and night, in cold and wet weather, 
waiting until young ladies have fitted their 
craws and bishops, or till young masters 
have fitted their collars and fixed their shoe 
straps, by which means we have caught 
colds, and have afterwards suffered a great 
decay in our health and strength. 
Your petitioners having briefly stated their 
grievances, humbly request that the corpo¬ 
ration would redress them in such a manner 
as their wisdom shall direct. They shall 
trespass upon the time of the corporation 
only while they suggest to them the follow¬ 
ing reflections : 
That, as the enjoyments of your petition¬ 
ers in life are few, compared with those of 
man, their wants and sufferings should be in 
the same proportion. That food, rest, health, 
and warmth constitute the principal part of 
their happiness. That the cruelty of de¬ 
priving them of these comforts is enhanced 
by their not being supplied with a hundred 
enjoyments which are peculiar to man. That 
they are, notwithstanding, connected with 
him by many common ties. They were 
called to partake with him of the blessings 
of existence, by the same almighty and be¬ 
nevolent Being; they enjoy with him the 
fruits of the divine 'goodness, in air, light, 
water and food ; and they share with him in 
the daily protection of the same kind and 
bountiful Parent of the universe. 
Signed, in behalf of all the horses in Dub¬ 
lin, by 
Bay, 
Black, 
Sorrel, 
Gray, 
Star, 
Roan. 
The number of sheep in the British Islands 
is estimated at 35,000,000, worth two hund¬ 
red and fifty millions of dollars! producing 
157,000,000 pounds of wool, worth fifty mil¬ 
lions of dollars annually. 
In the Choctaw language Missah, is liter¬ 
ally, “ old big." Sippah and sippah, signifies 
‘‘ strong," hence Mississippi, is old, big, strong 
river; and not the “father of waters” literally. 
A Committee for the 
purpose of peti¬ 
tioning the Corpo¬ 
ration. 
