PARLIAMENTARY INTELLIGENCE. 
00 / 
the society’s members, their sense of the injustice done 
to him, urging him also to use every effort to obtain a 
new trial in a higher court, and offering material aid, if 
necessary. 
Mr. Naylor, Wakefield, then read a most elaborate and 
learned essay on the natural history of the horse, which was 
well received, but, from the nature of the subject, it elicited 
little or no discussion. 
The next meeting of the Society will be held at Ripon, on 
Monday, October 30th, at 3 p.m. 
W. Williams, Bradford, 
Hon. Sec. 
Parliamentary Intelligence,' 
QUEEN’S PLATES. 
Mr. P. Wyndham said that the attention of the country had lately been 
called to the alleged fact that the breed of our horses for practical pur¬ 
poses had deteriorated. On that point he begged to read to the House 
a portion of the letter addressed to the Speaker, and subsequently pub¬ 
lished in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society by Mr. Dickenson, 
a successful breeder of horses, and a high authority on the matter. Mr. 
Dickenson said— 
“ Great advances have been made in the breeding of cattle, sheep, and 
pigs, in every part of the United Kingdom, during the last forty years. 
What is the case with regard to horses ? Have they not retrograded in 
the same degree ? Can the present race of horses be compared with 
those bred forty years since ? The cart-horse, perhaps, is the only class 
that can bear the comparison. There is a cause for this which I shall 
mention hereafter. Formerly Royal Plates of £100 each were given for 
competition all over England, for four-year-olds, lOst. 4 lb.; five years, 
11 st. 6 lb.; six and aged, 12 st.; decided in four mile heats. Our horses 
were then the envy of the whole of Europe. These Koyal Plates, for 
high weights and long distances, brought up our horses to this point of 
excellence; so long as they were so given, so long we kept our supremacy, 
but by some unfortunate influence the conditions were altered, and 
lighter weights and shorter distances allowed. From this point I date, 
under my own observation, the commencement of the deterioration of 
our thorough-bred horses, and, consequently, those in every-day use.” 
Mr. Dickenson’s experience extended back for a period of forty years; 
but Lord Redesdale, in introducing a Bill on that subject, in the other 
House, said he had come across complaints as long ago as seventy, eighty, 
and ninety years, of the decreasing stoutness and^oundness of our horses. 
The noble lord the President of the Council thought he had reduced the 
argument of those who were constantly lamenting the deterioration of our 
breed of horses to an absurdity when he quoted the opinion of a livery- 
stable keeper, who had told him that as long back as he could remember 
anything he could remember these periodical complaints about the dete- 
