Part 7
yet it is impossible to deny that the song, the poetry, and the exclamation are not in unison with the fact that the songster, the poet, and the exclaimer are constantly caught in the fact of having stolen away from the very "home," the very "nurse," and the very "isle" they so ardently profess to love: indeed, in proof of the alibi, every region of the globe, healthy or unhealthy, and especially every town, city, and bathing-place in Europe, could not only declare on affidavit that its localities, high-roads, bye-roads, paths, and streets, are, especially in summer time or flea-season, to be seen crawling alive with deserters from British homes, but to the questions, Who is waving that flag in the balloon high above our heads?--Who is standing in solitary triumph on the summit of that white capped mountain?--Who is it that has just descended from human sight to the bottom of the sea in a diving-bell? nine times out of ten it might truly be answered "_A Briton_," who, in apparent desperation, has sought refuge in the clouds, in the region of eternal snow, or in the briny deep, in order to get away from his "dulce domum," and from "the right little, tight little island" that contains it.
In almost every instance the home he has deserted is, comparatively speaking, replete with luxury and comfort; and yet, from stuffed sofas, easy chairs, feather beds, soft mattresses, warm fires, good carpets, a well-stocked library, cellar, larder, and dairy, flower and fruit gardens, carriages on buoyant springs, a stud of horses, faithful servants, and friendly neighbours, he has fled, with, in one pocket, a purse which, wherever he stops, by everybody is to be plundered; and in the other a passport, not to happiness, but to every description of what he has been educated to consider as a discomfort, simply because, instead of being homesick, he has become sick, almost unto death, of his "_home_."
Now, with these facts before us, which nobody can deny, it is strange to reflect that while man, from all parts of the United Kingdom, is to be seen centrifugally flying from his domicile, the horse's love for his stable is a flame which brightens as it burns, and which nothing but death can extinguish.
Those who have not studied or even observed the propensities of a horse, fancy that when, like a galley slave chained to his oar, he stands tied to his manger, he is in a prison, from which it would be an act of humanity to liberate him; and accordingly, if the animal has faithfully served them for many years, they feel disposed to reward him, as the great Duke of Wellington rewarded his gallant war-horse Copenhagen, by "_turning him out for the rest of his life_."
These notions, however, are perfectly erroneous. A horse not only loves his stable, he not only never wishes to leave it, but whenever he is taken out of it, although he may have been confined in it for many months, he no sooner gets out of the door than he evinces a desire to re-enter it. Every horseman, every coachman knows and feels that the difference between riding or driving, especially a thoroughbred horse from or towards his stable is so great, that while in the one case it is often necessary to spur or flog him _from_ his home, the animal invariably pulls hard, and on any trifling occurrence will start or kick with joy, all the time he is returning to it; and his neighs, responded to by his comrades within, express, in horse language, how pleased he is to get back to them, and how glad they are to recover him.
A horse loves his stable for the same reasons that ought to induce his master to love his home--namely, because, in society that pleases him, he lives well clothed, well fed, and well housed; and therefore (however well intended 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.[F]
By a simple shaft or chimney, and by other well-known 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 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; And, in the calmest and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a king?"--_Henry IV._
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.
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.
[Footnote F: 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.]
+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 safe and delightful, the interior mechanism of the foot is protected by one of those simple, beautiful, mechanical arrangements which in every direction demonstrate to us the superintending providence of an Almighty Power.
If the sole, front, sides, and back of a hunter's foot had been created as solid and as inelastic as the gold or silver case of what is called a hunting watch, the interior of the former, like that of the latter, would receive material damage from a heavy blow against the ground.
The coating, however, of hard horn or armour which shields the front and sides of the sensitive foot from any obstacle in its course, does not equally extend to that portion of it in the rear, out of harm's way, called the heels, beneath which we find on examination a triangular cushion of an Indiarubber-like composition, which, on concussion, or even by compression, acting as a wedge, forces the heels that contain it, outwards.
By this beautiful arrangement, when a hunter with his front legs extended, jumping over a broad fence, lands on a hard macadamised road upon his two fore-feet, the heels which receive the greater portion of the concussion are expanded by it in exact proportion to the weight of the bodies of the horse and rider, and the violence of the blow being thus alleviated, the sensitive mechanism of the foot is shielded from injury. And yet, strange to say, simply by the act of shoeing, this merciful protection in every country in the world is, generally speaking, destroyed!
If a mischievous or ignorant clown were to drive a nail through a chronometer, he would only destroy an insensible and inanimate work of art; but when a man of wealth, intelligence, and science--the proprietor of a valuable horse, on whose safe going his comfort, and occasionally his life depends--deliberately nails to the poor creature's living, expansible feet four obdurate, inexpansible iron shoes, he is really guilty of an act of barbarity and barbarism which would scarcely be expected from a savage, for besides instantly impeding the expansive apparatus of the foot, he effectually stops its growth.
Under this treatment the young horse, by day and by night, not only lives in shoes which, though they may not hurt him very much in the stable, always pinch him "in his utmost need," or rather speed; but, like a Chinese lady, he outgrows his own feet, until, on attaining his full size, it is discovered that his body, which, like that of Dives, his master, has always worn fine clothing, and has fared sumptuously every day, has nothing but a set of colt's feet with contracted heels to carry it!
To prevent, or at least to alleviate the sufferings acute and chronic just described, Mr. Turner, of Regent Street, introduced the unilateral system of what he called "half-nailing," which consists in affixing the shoe by nails on the outside and round the toe only, leaving the inner side totally unsecured.
By theorists it was, of course, asserted that this arrangement would prove to be defective and inefficient. In practice, however, not only is the contrary the result, but, on nearly thirty years' experience, we are enabled to maintain the apparent paradox that in riding along or across any and every description of country, a shoe, when _half_-nailed, is more secure than when _wholly_ nailed; in fact, that it is insecure almost in proportion as it is tightly nailed, and secure in proportion as it is loosely nailed.
The reasons are obvious.
When a horse is standing still, or lying fast asleep in his stable, his shoes are, of course, firmer when wholly than when only half-nailed. So soon, however, as, mounted by say a heavy man, he begins to move, there commences, out of sight of every human eye, a desperate, and in deep ground a subterranean struggle between the works of Nature and of Vulcan the blacksmith, or, in plainer words, between the expansive efforts of the frog and hoof and the arbitrary metallic shoe that is restraining them.
At each step the contest is renewed; and while, by an acceleration of pace, its violence is increased, the domination of the tyrant at every stride is infinitesimally diminished in consequence of the nails, which have to bear the whole brunt of the battle, becoming looser and looser, until, by a jump on hard ground, or some other violent concussion, the expansive power of the foot bursts the impaired fetters that have been restraining it, and the poor animal, thus suddenly emancipated from his shoe, leaves it either buried in mud, or, with every nail in its socket, glittering on the grass behind him.
Now, under the system of _half_-nailing, the battle we have just very faintly described does not take place. The foot can't struggle against nails which don't exist; and accordingly, just as the pliant reed remains erect after the storm that in its immediate neighbourhood has torn up by its roots the sturdy oak, so does the half-nailed shoe, by allowing the horse's foot to expand, perform by gentleness what violence has failed to effect; and therefore it remains, throughout a severe run, hard and fast, where Vulcan placed it.
The Greeks and Romans did not shoe their horses, but, for long journeys, were in the habit of protecting, by leathern sandals, strengthened by iron, and ornamented with silver or gold, their feet, to the substance and shape of which they paid great attention.
"The first thing," wrote Xenophon more than 2200 years ago, "that ought to be looked to in a horse is his foot. For as a house would be of no use, though all the upper parts of it were beautiful, if the lower parts of it had not a proper foundation, so a horse would not be of any use in war if he had tender feet, even though he should have all other good qualities, for his good qualities could not be made of any available use."
In many parts of the world the horse, though severely worked, has never yet been shod. Indeed, in some of the towns in South America it would still cost more money to shoe a horse than was paid to purchase him.
+On Roughing Horses.+
Although of all axioms no one is more trite and true than that "there is a right and a wrong way of doing everything," yet our readers will hardly be prepared to learn that the Anglo-Saxon on one side of the Atlantic roughs his horse in the right way, and on the other side in the wrong way!
In the United States, and especially in Canada, the surface of which for half a dozen months in every year, white as a bridal plum-cake, is composed of snow or ice, the _toe_ as well as the two heels of each shoe are roughed; and as, in consequence thereof, the horse on every foot stands upon a tripod, his sinews and muscles not only remain in their proper position all the time he is in a stable, but while crossing a level country the sole of each foot when it presses the ground is parallel to its surface.
In ascending a hill the front cog, in descending a hill the two hind cogs, and in traversing a plain the three cogs, of each shoe catch firm hold of the ground; and accordingly the horse, whether in ascent, descent, or on level ground, works in so true a position, and is so efficiently roughed, that out of deep snow he can, at any gradient, gallop suddenly upon what is called "glare ice," almost as hard as iron, without the slightest danger to himself or his rider.
Now, in England, generally speaking, horses are most unscientifically roughed on their heels _solely_, which not only at once, even in the stable, especially when the outside cogs are unequally turned up, throws the mechanism of their feet and fetlocks out of gear--it not only forces them while travelling on a dead level into a false position, but, after all this maltreatment, the poor animal finds out that he is very inefficiently roughed.
For instance, in descending a hill, only the cog or cogs of the heels of each foot, which can never be placed parallel to the ground, take hold of it. In ascending, his case is infinitely worse; for, as it becomes necessary, especially when he is drawing a very heavy load, that he should raise his heels off the road in order to stick into it his toes, he then discovers that while the hind portion of his shoe which he abstains from using has been roughed for him, the _front_ part, which, for the ascent, especially requires to be roughed, has been left untouched. Even to gallop a horse, shod in the English fashion, over level ice, is exceedingly dangerous; for although, so long as by a powerful bit he is forced on his haunches, the two cogs at the back of each shoe take hold, yet, if the poor animal be allowed to drop his head in order to propel himself at his utmost speed by his unroughed toes, they immediately slip from under him, and he thus experiences a defect, which it is astonishing should have been so long perpetrated by a nation who, at an enormous expenditure of time, intelligence, and money, have succeeded in rearing a breed of horses, the finest in the world, coveted by every foreigner, but which they persist in rudely roughing in the wrong way!
+Saddles.+
If a saddle does not come down upon the withers and back-bone of a horse, the closer it approaches them the firmer it fits; and as, in the matrimonial alliance which exists between the quadruped and the biped, whatever is agreeable to the one is usually so to the other, a roomy saddle, on which the rider can sit with ease and comfort, is also beneficial to the horse, because it spreads the weight he has to carry over a large surface, and the pressure per square inch being thereby diminished, a sore back is less likely to be created, and per contra, for the very same reason, the human skin is less likely to be rubbed.
Less than a century ago it was deemed necessary by hunting men to tie their saddle to their horse's tail by a crupper, which, at every jump, must have compressed the vertebræ of the poor animal, like the joints of a telescope when slightly closed by a jerk. The object of this barbarous apparatus was to prevent the saddle slipping _forwards_, whereas, by the opposite apparatus of the present day, a breast-plate has been substituted, to prevent the saddle from slipping _backwards_. The difference between these two conflicting precautions has been caused by the difference in the breeding, and consequently in the size of the horse's belly, which, in the time of our ancestors, was lusty, instead of being--as in the present day, when many hunters are racers, and all in high condition--fine and slim.
When a horse is exceedingly light in the carcase, or as it is technically termed "tucked up," it is usual among grooms and riders to girth the poor creature as tightly as they can, in order, as much as is possible, to relieve the breast-plate; but instead of assisting it, the grievous mistake first paralyses its action, and then, if it be weak, breaks it, for the following simple reasons.
If a horse, with a belly tapering like a cone, be tightly girthed, his saddle, whenever it slips backwards (which it must do in ascending a steep hill or bank), remains hard and fast on the part of the back to which it has retired, straining against the breast-plate, whose straps have not power to make it re-ascend the cone: whereas if, on the contrary, the saddle of a light-carcased horse be unusually loosely girthed, although in ascending an acclivity the saddle slips backwards until it is retained by the breast-plate, yet, the instant the horse either descends a hill, or gallops upon level ground, his own action, combined with the power of the breast-plate straps affixed to the saddle and girths, put an end to all strain upon the latter, by drawing the loosely-girthed saddle forwards into its proper position. And it is for this reason that horses of all shapes ought to be girthed less tightly when they carry breast-plates than when they are without them, and always two holes looser when they are light-carcased than when they are lusty.
Formerly it was the usual custom in the hunting-field, as it still is on the road, to secure the saddle by two narrow girths, each buckled on either side to one strap. This arrangement has lately been superseded by what are called Fitzwilliam girths, composed of one of double breadth with two buckles at each end, and of a narrow one encircling and secured to the broad one by two loops, through which it passes.
By this admirable alteration perfect safety is obtained; for, as the broad girth is secured to four straps, if, say one on each side burst at a leap, the other two remain efficient; and even if all break, those of the narrow girth retain the broad one in its place; while, on the other hand, if the straps of the broad girth hold, the narrow one is prevented by the loops above described from dangling, in case either of its two buckles should give way.
Whereas, by the old arrangement, if out of four straps any one burst at a leap, its girth instantly dangled, leaving the safety, and possibly the life of the rider, to depend on only two straps, by the rupture of either one of which he would suddenly, without his knowledge, be riding, possibly at a large fence, without any girths at all.
But, although hunting men have gained a step or stride by this new fashioned girth, they have lately, as if to balance the account, retrograded to the wisdom of their ancestors by discarding the modern stuffed saddle-flap in favour of that ancient hard one which for many years has been used only by postilions.