tended it may be) nothing can be more cruel to a faithful animal that has all his life been accustomed to such artificial luxuries, than to turn or ostracise him into a park so soon as his age and infirmities require for him if possible still greater comforts. It would be thought harsh, ungenerous, and unjust, were a nobleman to reward his old worn out butler, and bent, decrepit, toothless housekeeper, by consigning them both for the winter of their lives to the parish workhouse, where, at no cost to themselves, they would receive lodging, firing, food, and raiment; but if, without a shilling in their pockets, and without a rag on their backs, his Lordship were to turn the poor old couple adrift in the back-woods of North America, he would confer upon them, in return for their services, exactly the same sort of reward which is conferred upon an old worn out horse when, suddenly deprived of the oats, beans, hay, bed, clothing, warm stable, and companions he has been accustomed to, he is all of a sudden, as a reward in full for all the work he has performed, "turned out for the rest of his life." The extraordinary attachment of a horse to his stable, especially if it contains many comrades, may be exemplified by the following anecdote : : Some years ago a brown thorough-bred mare became gradually afflicted by a spavin on each hind leg, which, on due consultation, were declared to be incurable except by firing. To undergo this painful prescription she was led from a stable where she had been residing by herself to the cavalry barracks at Hounslow, about a mile off, where she was placed in a stable full of horses for a day or two to undergo a preparatory dose of physic. By men and ropes she was then cast, fired, and in the course of two or three days, as soon as she could bear moving, she was slowly led back to her master, who, with kind intentions, turned her into a small field of nice, cool, luxuriant grass, about one hundred yards beyond his house. After eating a few mouthfuls the poor animal raised her head, snorted, looked first on one side, then on the other, snorted again, stretched out her tail, trotted up to a stiff post and rail fence, which she cleared, and then passing unnoticed the loose box in which for many months she had lived, forgetting and forgiving all the sufferings that had been inflicted upon her, with raw, bleeding legs, she galloped along the hard macadamised road to the cavalry stable, to re-enjoy the society of the dozen horses which only for a few days she had had the happiness of associating with. In constructing a stable the main object should be to secure to the lungs of the horse pure air, and to prevent the hay in the loft above him from being impaired by foul air.* By a simple shaft or chimney, and by other wellknown modes of ventilation, both these advantages can be obtained; and yet they are, comparatively speaking, of no avail, if beneath the straw bed on which the horse lies there exists a substratum generating and emitting gases of a highly deleterious composition. A stable may be well ventilated and well drained, the forage may be of the best description, and yet all may be impaired by an atmosphere unfit for respiration; for if foul litter beneath be only covered, as is often, and in many stables is usually the case, by a layer of white straw, (like a dirty shirt under a suit of fine new clothing), distemper and disease must be the result. Although therefore it should be the secondary duty of a good groom to clean his horse, his primary duty is to clean his stable; for as, in a fast and long run across a deep country, it is undeniable that the healthiest lungs must triumph, it follows that a clean horse out of a dirty stable cannot live with a dirty one of exactly the same character and cast out of a clean stable. But as it is always easier to preach wisdom than to practise it, so is it infinitely easier to prescribe clean * Youatt, in his valuable work entitled "THE HORSE," truly says that changes from cold to heated foul air are as dangerous to the animal as from heat to cold. litter than to maintain it. Indeed, it is almost impossible to keep straw under a horse perfectly pure; and accordingly, throughout the United States of America, and even in New York, horses are often made to lie on bare boards, on which they appear to sleep just as soundly as in a state of nature they would sleep on ground baked hard by the sun. On this fact being privately whispered by us to the authorities at the Horse Guards, it was at once repudiated by the assertion that it would ruin English cavalry horses were they to be made to sleep without litter on hard boards; and yet all the soldiers of Europe, cavalry as well as infantry, in their guard rooms sleep and snore on wooden beds, probably a good deal sounder than do their respective sovereigns on bedding composed of wool, hair, down, feathers, fine linen, blankets, and counterpanes. "Canst thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; Another disadvantage of straw-litter is that horses with a voracious appetite are sometimes prone to eat it, whether it be clean or dirty. To prevent them from thus distending as well as injuring their stomachs, it is usual to inflict upon them a muzzle, which, by impeding respiration, is more or less injurious to the lungs. H A better and indeed an effectual mode of prevention is to substitute for straw, wooden shavings, which form a cheap, wholesome, clean, and comfortable bed. ON SHOEING. As a railway carriage is constructed on springs to soften all ordinary jolts, and with buffers to alleviate any violent concussion;-as the human mind is gifted with a buoyancy which enables it cheerfully to meet any trifling vexation, and with sentiments of religion which maintain its serenity under the severest afflictions, so do the pastern above a horse's foot, and the frog beneath it, protect the body of the animal from the continual slight concussions and occasional severe ones to which, in ordinary and extraordinary exertions, it is liable to be subjected. The pastern, like the instep of those Spanish women whose heels in walking scarcely touch the ground, gives grace and elasticity to every step; indeed, in the walk, trot, canter, and gallop of a horse we clearly see the spring of his pasterns softening the movements of their own creation. But while the career of the body is thus rendered |