PRESIDENT-THE EARL OF CLARENDON. 
113 
the night. In the spring and summer he should always be given 
tares or fresh young grasses, which being of a cooling nature 
counteract the heating properties of corn. 
Some of us are even slaves to our pets, and although there is 
perhaps nothing elevating in affection for soulless animals, and love 
for the brute creation may be carried too far, it is, notwithstanding, 
an indication of character, and one can never regard the care man 
bestows upon, and the protection he affords to, his dumb favourites, 
without recognising the truth of the old adage that it is “ the 
merciful man that is merciful to his beast,” and without believing 
that this tender feeling, this “ milk of human kindness,” as it were, 
is extended in a greater degree to his human fellow-creatures. It 
was once my fate to be riding alongside of a brother sportsman 
when he broke his horse’s back in landing over a small obstacle. 
¥e passed the spot the next day. Was it womanly or weak that 
the bereaved Nimrod should gaze at the body of his favourite, now 
stiff and stark in death, through a mist of tears? Was it not rather 
a sign of a warm, a grateful, and a sympathetic disposition, which, 
if displayed towards an animal, is more than likely to be exhibited 
towards mankind ? 
I am well aware that my Address has been diffuse, and perhaps 
inconsequent; but it is difficult, within the narrow limits of a 
brief discourse, to treat the subject I have chosen save after a 
generalising manner. I do not presume so far as to say that I 
have made my point as to the necessity for the existence of the 
horse, and it may be that the sentiments I have expressed are but 
the outcome of “horse on the brain”; but man is apt to take 
himself as a standard whereby to judge of others, and owing as I 
do much of the health and happiness I enjoy to the horse, I am not 
unnaturally grateful to him for being the means of providing these 
priceless boons ; and I doubt not but that many of my countrymen 
and countrywomen would be, as I myself am to-night, glad to 
place that gratitude on record. 
VOL. VI.—PART IV. 
8 
