Chapter VIII (2)

So it is with the indications of various disorders. The horses of the existing race of proprietors are, for a life, doomed to subsist on the same substances: four or five times a day, dried grass, oats, and a few beans are placed before them: some have chopped straw, and, in exceptional cases, prepared food; but that being only allowed for the last meal on Saturday night, does not interfere with the monotony of diet. Now, a sameness in the articles consumed, as medical men now recognize, disorders the digestion; but when aided by a want of exercise, a total absence of amusement, and an impure residence, perhaps no better means could be invented to derange the tenderest radicles of being. The sympathy which exists between the stomach and the skin is now so universally understood that it will generate no surprise if the creature, thus housed, imprisoned, and sustained, should be occasionally troubled with an obstinate cutaneous affection.

Stabled horses often are the victims of an acutely sensitive condition of the integument. Yet the possible existence of such a state is never admitted by the groom, because the affection is unaccompanied by any outward sign. There is no tenderness displayed when the hand is laid upon the body. The coat looks bloomingly. The scurf is not developed in increased quantity. The hair does not prove loose or fall off. There is nothing visible for ignorance to perceive. The animal feeds well, and seems in the highest possible condition. The groom cannot, therefore, believe in the presence of disease. Nevertheless, the quadruped may acutely suffer, especially during the spring and autumn. It may even, by the irritation, be provoked to gnaw large patches from the sensitive covering of the body; but the more common form of the disease urges the poor horse to destroy the heavy rug in which stable attendants are fond of wrapping their charges, before quitting them for the night.

What precise form the irritation assumes, it is impossible to ascertain; but no sooner is the quadruped clothed up, than it begins to fidget. Its legs are in almost perpetual motion, and the body repeatedly leans with violence against the trevise. The creature is evidently uneasy, and the animal’s eye watches the groom until that individual, having finished his work, retires to the consolation of the adjacent public house.

No sooner is the animal certain of being alone, than it commences to tear off the hateful clothing. Large portions are seized between the teeth, and these are rent off with an energy which borders upon madness. Nor is the mental fever, which actuates the horse, to be pacified, so long as a vestige of the hated envelope remains to be removed. The passion seems to be very engrossing while it exists; for, during the period, anybody may enter the building, and even approach the irritated quadruped, without his presence being observed. But, the feat being ended, the creature looks around, seems to recover its recognitions, nibbles different portions of its coat, licks the coolest parts of its manger, being evidently thirsty, and ultimately lies down, apparently well satisfied with its recent performance.

The recognized remedy for such a condition does not regard the morbid state out of which the destruction arises; but it consists in placing upon the back of the horse a garment which shall pain the lips, tongue, palate and gums when it is grasped by the teeth. Cloths of such a description are manufactured of coarse horse-hair, and are commonly kept by most harness-makers, so general is their adoption. After such a fashion, the biting impulse may be sometimes checked; but there are quadrupeds which seem to be goaded to still greater violence by the device. Other animals, though the cloth of hair acts as a preventive, become restless, and evidently pine under the remedy: their appetite fails: their spirit vanishes, and their flesh wastes: nay, the author has known the introduction of the favorite cure to be followed by an internal and a fatal form of disease.

Why should all inhabitants of the stable be subjected to a sameness of treatment? Why should all horses be expected to consume the same food; to eat the like quantities of provender; to drink a particular amount of water, and to be clothed in uniform, when left for the night? It may please the eye of the groom to behold the animals all wrapped up and bedded down to match, as he quits the stable for the night; yet, where life is concerned, something stronger should regulate arrangements than the gratification of a servant’s prejudice.

To propitiate the inclinations or the whims of a retainer, constituted no part of the motive which caused the stables to be erected. Such places are professedly built _for_ horses, and the animals, therefore, should be primarily regarded. Yet, wherefore oblige a quadruped to be covered up with a rug, when the creature, by a nightly destruction of the wrapper, asserts the envelope to be objectionable? Why compel an unwilling steed to endure that which is not requisite on the score of decency; which cannot be adopted on any plea of appearance; and which, in the most emphatic manner, is declared not pleasant to the life on whose body it is suspended?

It is impossible to comprehend that the groom possesses any excess of modesty which can be offended at the notion of a horse sleeping naked in the stall; and if the absence of covering is agreeable to the party which is principally concerned, it seems odd a reasonable being should insist that a contrary practice shall be adopted. Still, persist these individuals certainly do; and even carry their persistence to other particulars. The skins of the equine race are as various in degrees of sensibility as can be those of human beings. There do exist many men who, for pleasure, first soak their bodies in warm baths, and subsequently polish the cuticle with the hardest possible of flesh brushes. Others would only be gratified were they daily rubbed down with brick bats. On the contrary, there exist individuals on whom a ruck in the finest linen will inflict a discomfort which, in its intensity, almost amounts to an agony.

So there are horses possessing hides to which may be applied with impunity the sharpest and coarsest of curry-combs. But there also live many animals having skins to which the oldest and bluntest of those antiquated scratchers will occasion a sensation the acuteness of which is testified to by the violence of resistance with which the morning’s dressing shall be accompanied. Yet, rather than obey the hint so energetically conveyed, or discard the employment of anything with which use has familiarized them, the least venturesome of grooms will brave daily danger. In vain does the irritated quadruped writhe, frisk, stamp, kick, snap and bite, under the infliction; the servant has been taught that a curry-comb is an instrument to be applied to the skins of horses. The head will be tied up--the leg-strap employed; nay, the hobbles and the twitch will be applied, before the lesson he has learned to regard in his youth shall be discarded. Such tools of the lowest routine are the ignorant in everything which does not involve their personal gratifications.

The consequence is, that because the animal, while being dressed, cannot forbear biting at all objects which are near to it, the incisor teeth rapidly lose the cutting edges, and become rounded. Such a shape of the nippers used to be viewed as indicative of _crib biting_; but the fallacy of this notion having been exposed, the idea is generally abandoned. Nevertheless, an animal having rounded front teeth would fare badly at an equine banquet where the provender had to _be cropped_ from the earth. It is, therefore, only prudent to prevent the creature from spoiling its mouth. To accomplish this, remove the curry-comb; for, should it be allowed to remain in the stable, the chances are very strongly against the groom’s favorite tool being discarded. Have the skin dressed with a penetrating brush; or, should that prove too sharp, order it to be groomed very gently with the wisp and water brush. Animals possessed of extremely sensitive skins generally carry very fine coats; therefore they can well afford to dispense with very much labor from their stable attendant.

The snapping may, from long indulgence, have become confirmed as a habit. In that case, nevertheless, ameliorate the dressing; but, before the groom undertakes the cleansing of the skin, the quadrupeds should be fixed by two strong pillar-reins, each of which is of sufficient length to reach, from opposite sides, to the middle of the dressing stall. The head, thus bridled, is comparatively fixed, and is, of course, fastened away from any substance which might be seized by the teeth. However, the skin is sometimes, when thus tender, loaded with a scurf which no curry-comb, however long it may be applied, will do aught but increase. In this case, always change the provender, and particularly see the food is properly prepared ere it is presented. Give, daily, one ounce of liquor arsenicalis, in a pint of cold water; and every morning damp the skin, _not the hair_, with a mixture composed of animal glycerin, one part; rose-water, two parts.

For an animal that destroyed its rugs, the first measure is, to refuse all further supply of such articles. Then attend to the food, after the method already advised; next anoint the body with glycerin and rose-water, subsequently employing a hay wisp regularly night and morning. Place the animal in a cool, loose box, and, if possible, leave both window and half the door open. When night arrives, permit the quadruped, at its pleasure, to move in or out of the stable--allowing a piece of rather closely bitten meadow land for exercise, when the sun is down and the flies are at rest. Take the animal in before insects begin to throng, which they seldom do till the sun has gained full power. By way of medicine, daily give one ounce of liquor arsenicalis, in a pint of cold water, together with one quart of good (not publican’s) beer. Keep the bowels regular with bran mashes or with green meat. There can be no necessity why all labor should be relinquished: the work, however, ought not to be excessive, or the pace too exhausting; for any extraordinary exertion is apt to lead to excoriations which are, in their turn, disposed to end in large and obstinate sores, when the skin is in an irritable condition.

Every part of the horse is of importance to the owner: the teeth are not secondary to the feet; the legs are of no less value than the lungs; and the skin cannot be esteemed more lightly than the eyes. Indeed, every rider ought to make himself acquainted with the appearances natural to the healthy eye of the horse; for a shying steed will effectually destroy the pleasure of an entire day. The horseman should notice the eyes of every animal he intends to mount. As a precaution, such a measure is imperative; for, being forewarned, he may be prepared to encounter the danger into which defective vision is almost certain to lead the rider. For the method of proceeding, when examining the eyes of a horse, the reader is referred to the “Illustrated Horse Doctor,” (pp. 49 and 56,) wherein the proper plan is amply detailed.

The reason for recommending what the reader may regard as a troublesome acquisition and a strange knowledge for a gentleman to bore over, is, because those livery stable-keepers who let horses out to strangers, can hardly be expected to maintain a very valuable stud for such purposes. It is not asserted that these tradesmen knowingly send out very defective animals; but they could not, perhaps, in the way of business, warrant, as decidedly sound, any inhabitant of their stables. The eyes are the parts which generally fail. Exposed to a tainted atmosphere and fixed close to a whitened wall, when at home; wearing blinkers unpleasantly near to the organs, when abroad; while, at other times, they carry a saddle, having the eye exposed to the full glare of the sun,--it is not a subject for wonder that bodies so sensitively endowed and delicately organized should become diseased.

Added to the natural results of such causes is the treatment experienced from brutal and ignorant fellows, whom a few shillings have invested with a whip. Such persons are fond of slashing the horse over the head, and may thus produce partial opacity of the cornea. (See “Illustrated Horse Doctor,” p. 46.) The effect of imperfect vision is to create alarm in a highly imaginative but an excessively timid animal. Shying is the consequence, and this act is as various in its developments as its causes may be numerous. Probably this will be best explained by relating a circumstance which, a few years ago, occurred to a friend of the author’s.

A young gentleman, native of Ireland, complained one street was so like another, that though he should live a thousand years in London, he should still see nothing of the town. He wished to view the suburbs to ascertain the situation of the metropolis; with this purpose in view, he, one afternoon, hired a horse at a West End livery stables, and trotted upon the Uxbridge Road. Everything went pleasantly till steed and rider had reached Ealing Common, when, there being nothing in view, the gentleman gave the quadruped its head, and allowed it to proceed at its own pace. The pair, however, had only gone a short distance, when, from some motive not recognizable to human perception, the creature was seized with a violent fit of “swerving;” or, in other words, it suddenly left the road, and, moving sideways, began describing a rather wide semicircle upon the common, which was, at the place, fortunately smooth and level.

But Ealing Common appears to be a favorite spot with laundresses, who there hang out their wet linen. The rider was dragged under one of the lines, loaded with damp clothes, while his horse pushed against an elderly washerwoman, and, spite of her screams and resistance, propelled her a considerable space. The gentleman, almost thrown by the unexpected motion of his nag, and half smothered by the wet garments, which clung about his head, was wholly at a loss to comprehend the cause of the female screams, rendered yet more discordant by the shrill cries of her terrified grandson.

When, however, he understood everything, a donation calmed the agitation of the female, while, hastening to a roadside inn, he found a man who was willing to take the horse back to the livery stables. The rider returned by another conveyance, and he has never since trusted himself outside an unknown animal.

Swerving, however, is no more than a mild form of shying, when compared with the numerous evils which result from defects of the visual organs. Every possible variety of eccentric gait is not to be imagined, much less is it to be described. One consequence of this peculiarity, perhaps the worst shape it can assume, is bolting or running away. When a horse is thus impelled, it is, as was insisted upon in the “Illustrated Horse Doctor,” useless to tug at the reins or to slash with the whip. Such acts may aggravate the peril, but they cannot check the movement, which originates in a dread that lifts its victim above all earthly restraints. The brain is then excited and confused; the pain, which the body shall fail to recognize, nevertheless may prove an additional stimulant to the wildness that approaches near to positive despair.

The quadruped is not to blame. It has been guilty of no fault. Its behavior may displease its present master; but the horse has no ability to struggle with a fear which was generated by disease. The alarm was the offspring of a cause beyond the aid of medicine and removed from the help of surgery. Such an animal, however, should not be left entirely to its fate; for “running away” is apt to become more frequent upon repetition. The eyes, thus afflicted, should be covered when the quadruped is taken abroad; for it is safer to sit behind a creature which is sightless, than one which is possessed only of a dangerous or of an imperfect vision.

Then, to explain the motives for that forbearance and to render clear the prudence of that gentleness which the reader has been recommended to practice. Let it be inquired, can pain be esteemed a corrective of terror? It was an apprehension of suffering which created the alarm. To render such a dread a reality, does not appear to be the readiest method of dispelling the feeling which has been generated by the imaginary possibility of agony being encountered. The quickest plan by which any particular sensation can be destroyed, certainly is to excite another emotion that is the opposite of the one we are desirous should be dispelled. Then awaken an assurance of security, and, of course, alarm is annihilated. It may not be a popular or an heroic line of treatment which the author has presumed to propose; but, assuredly, the safest way to destroy a fear is to kindle an emotion which shall be antagonistic to that it is desirable to remove.

Such conduct, however, would be directly opposite to what is at present generally exemplified by the majority of mankind. A horse bolts, or it runs away, and the act is hastily concluded to originate in a “vicious propensity” which the animal delights in indulging. The creature is spoken of as a “bolter.” The topmost speed and the blindest flight is, by equestrians, regarded as the gratification of a malicious spirit, and, thus considered, only elicits a firm resolution to subdue its exhibition at every hazard. The reins are sawn and the whip is plied, until agony has driven terror to madness, and some awful disaster puts a termination to the unsightly proceeding.

The following is intended to be an accurate representation of an incident which the author witnessed, some years ago, in the neighborhood of Holloway. In the issue, however, no person was injured; even the horse escaped unharmed. It would have been difficult to say which of the principal actors was the most frightened. Probably the alarm of each was as great as it was possible to be; but the breakage of the shafts, the rupture of the traces, and the snapping of the reins mainly secured the immunity of all. No one, having seen the aspect borne by the event at one time, could have foretold how it was to terminate; assuredly the fortunate result was not facilitated by the gentleness or the self-possession of the driver. That person did his best, no doubt without the intention of whipping up a catastrophe: he acted according to the recognized rules; but it was owing to the reflection such a scene gave rise to that the author was led to recognize the folly of that behavior which is generally displayed under the like alarming circumstances.

Before concluding the present chapter, the reader is earnestly counseled to discard the many foolish tales he may have heard about the horse being naturally a “vicious animal.” What reward is reaped from the indulgence of the creature’s imaginary designs? Death, injury, or disfigurement! Such consequences might ensue upon the promptings of insanity; but no one, however, has supposed that madness instigated the conduct which man recognizes as “vice” in the horse. There is, in the world’s opinions, a wide distinction separating the mad horse from the “vicious brute.” The attributed “vice” is certainly not recognized as madness, although it may be accompanied by the temporary absence of consciousness. The vicious acts display too great a similarity throughout the entire equine race, distributed over the world, to be reconciled with the presence of recognition; while they are too regular in their development and far too heedless in their execution to accord with the promptings of any wicked disposition which would be dependent upon individual inclination.

Then, the sameness which pervades the entire group of supposed “equine vices,” cannot be reasonably accounted for in accordance with the popular belief. In the human being, each example of a vicious disposition is conspicuous for adopting an independent and an eccentric course of action, though it occasionally practices imitation. Can animals instruct or mimic one another? Have horses, only, the power to communicate “vice” to their companions? Can they, only, teach self-mutilation, and learn suicide? That is not to be credited. But will the reader, viewing them as inferior beings, consider the conduct of all as regulated by the impulses of instinct, generated by sudden emotion? Then, sameness is by no means extraordinary. Eating is in man an instinctive act. The modes of preparing food are various, and the methods of its division are as dissimilar in different nations,--for these actions are shaped by conviction or by reason; but the manner in which the instinctive portion of the act is performed, the way in which the sustenance is masticated and is swallowed, though in some degree influenced by refinement, is mainly similar in all regions, and in every race of human beings.

To run away from danger is an instinct in a horse. The animal does not fly from battle, only because man has deceived it into a faith that there is no danger where gunpowder is consumed. Terror renders the animal blind and unconscious. It has no more power to check the last effect than it has ability to contend against the first consequence. Pain induces a natural desire to escape from the cause of suffering. Its wish may be gratified at the sacrifice of property; but property is an artificial institution, of which most animals have hitherto refused recognition. Sameness of cause generally induces like results. Idleness leads to mischief; satiety promotes waste; terror generates alarm; and itching provokes scratching. These acts in the animal may be imprudently indulged; but the horse, having no conception of a future, of course cannot nicely calculate probabilities. Thus, if we run through the list of the so-called “vices,” each will admit of a very easy and of a remarkably ready solution.

Let no man, therefore, speak of a “vicious horse.” Let no reasonable being so far forget himself as to attribute design as a motive to the creature which nature has endowed only with instinct. Needless torture, though inflicted on a brute, rebounds to strike humanity. But mankind have not yet so emerged from barbarism as to have entirely lost all relish for those prejudices which justify cruelty. The written history of the world is the sad record of a long struggle midst blood and suffering. Only of late years have men dared to relax the laws, and only recently have they sought to lessen crime, by educating the debased to perceive the beauty of goodness. Might not a similar spirit, applied to horses, diminish the number and lessen the fatality of equestrian accidents? At all events, such a suggestion deserves a trial. It should be experimented with, if not for its novelty, because it proposes the adoption of behavior which must gratify the better feelings of the master, and because it holds forth a reasonable prospect of decreasing some of the more serious evils by which human life is, at the present moment, too frequently endangered.

Before joining in the cry against equine vice, always investigate the act which is adduced to justify the prejudice. Do this quietly. Look fairly at the surrounding circumstances, and think how these might possibly act upon a timid and a non-reasoning creature. Find out the cause, if possible; because, by so doing, you will best serve your own interest. Knowing the cause, it is probable you may eradicate the effect. But, before this is undertaken, the party must be prepared to exercise his utmost patience; for animals are slow to learn, and have to conquer their terrors before they can exemplify the easiest of lessons. Only, once taught, they are retentive scholars; and, by the pride they evince in their acquirements, reward their instructor.

To stimulate the proprietor unto that course of conduct which is recommended above, it surely must be sufficient to remind him that the opposite method has been long as it has been most perseveringly tried. Severity, however, although enthusiastically exemplified, notoriously has only imperiled man, without in any way amending the habits of the animal. Therefore the reader is asked, if it is reasonable to continue the proceeding which, having been largely tested, has induced nothing but misfortune?