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BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS, 
 
 Br 
 
 HARRY HIEOVER. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 T. C. NEWBY, 30, WELBECK STREET, 
 
 CAVENDISH SQUARE. 
 1853. 
 
5" 
 
TO 
 
 HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEAUEORT. 
 
 My Lord Duke, 
 
 The distinction of being permitted to dedicate 
 the production of any pen to j'our Grace, would 
 alone be sufficient to call forth unlimited con- 
 gratulation to its Author. 
 
 This little Essay will, however, enjoy advan- 
 tages from the dedication so condescendingly 
 granted to it, that elevated rank alone would 
 not procure for it. 
 
 The esteem, respect, and regard in which 
 your Grace is held by all classes of society, will 
 
IV DEDICATION. 
 
 be certain to produce attention to any work 
 your Grrace may be pleased to countenance and 
 support ; and where that work advocates the 
 practice of kindness and humanity, all surprise 
 will cease that might otherwise exist, at my 
 being permitted to dedicate such a trifle as this 
 little Essay to the Duke of Beaufort. 
 
 That title has so long been associated with 
 the true field sports of this country, that the 
 public will feel quite satisfied that any work 
 your Grace may consider as deserving support, 
 must be one written with truth, justice, and im- 
 partiality. If such should be found the unpre- 
 tending features of this little essay, I can 
 hope for no more : should it, under the flattering 
 auspices with which it will appear, become 
 popular, I shall feel perfectly convinced that to 
 those advantages it will be indebted mainly for 
 its success. 
 
 Whatever may, however, be its fate, the 
 honour conferred on me by its dedication no 
 
DEDICATION. V 
 
 man or circumstance can deprive me of. I 
 have the honour to remain, with every feeling of 
 respect and gratitude, 
 
 Your Grace's 
 
 Very obedient, 
 Humble, and devoted Servant, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is not alwaj^s, or, indeed, generally the case, 
 that an Author can flatter himself that he may 
 commence his work ^YithoQt some misgivings as 
 to how far his theme may meet the approbation 
 of the Public ; indeed it often requires no little 
 tact, so to describe its intent and purport as to 
 awaken interest, or even curiosity, in one class 
 of readers, and to avoid censure or refutation 
 from another, 
 
 I am, however, for once in my life, in so en- 
 viable a position as to feel that the only apology 
 requisite for this little Treatise will possibly arise 
 
\lll PREFACE. 
 
 from a want of efficiency on my part in carry- 
 ing it out. 
 
 It was at first contemplated to put the present 
 work into the hands of one, whose pen I know 
 would have done it far more justice than mine, 
 and whose profession, with the right-minded 
 part of the communit)^ would have commanded 
 an attention and respect that I cannot pretend 
 to ; but subsequent thought brought on the im- 
 pression that those to whom the profession of that 
 gentleman would have been a passport to such 
 respectful attention, are not persons to whom a 
 Treatise like the present is wanted ; and it was 
 feared that those to whom its circulation may be 
 useful and desirable,would be deterred from read- 
 ing it, by the very circumstance that ought to be 
 the strongest incentive to do so ; and it is to be 
 feared, though not complimentary to the morality 
 of society at large, that such would probably have 
 been the case. 
 
 It was then suggested, that to render the work 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 acceptable to the Public, some one must be 
 found generally known to be intimately ac- 
 quainted with the habits, dispositions, and feelings 
 of animals, and equally practised in their treat- 
 ment and management, so as to render them ser- 
 viceable to man, with the least possible suffering 
 to the animal ; it was at the same time considered 
 that such person should be also known as a 
 sportsman, in order to do away with any impres- 
 sion on the reader's mind that he would be 
 inflicted with the perusal of either maudlin sen- 
 sibility, or overstrained feelings of unnecessary 
 indulgence towards the brute creation. 
 
 I will endeavour to bring a case in point. If we 
 wanted to reform the habitual drunkard, it would 
 be quite impolitic to turn him over to the lessons 
 or advice of the tee-totaller,or even the particularly 
 abstemious man : he would most probably refuse 
 to listen to either ; and if he did, he would hold 
 all that emanated from them as ideas only ori- 
 ginating with, and entertained by such particular 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 individuals ; but if we were to put him into the 
 hands of one who in a gentlemanly way enjoyed 
 the good things of life, and moreover was some- 
 what of a bon vivant, such a man would com- 
 mand attention from his more intemperate pupil ; 
 and if he represented and deprecated the de- 
 grading and demoralizing effects of habitual 
 inebriety, his precepts would be acknowledged 
 as truths, when the best discourse on the sub- 
 ject that ever came from the lips of the divine, 
 would be unattended to by the reprobate, if we 
 even succeeded in getting him into a situation to 
 hear it. 
 
 As a man known to have been, in sporting 
 phrase, '' at all in the ring " in British sports 
 (save deer stalking), the reader need fear no 
 overstrained sensibility from Harry Hieover. Not 
 having been particularly careful of my own neck, 
 I have not hesitated in risking at times that of 
 my horses ; never having shrank from strong 
 personal exertion in sporting pursuits, I have 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 subjected my horses to the same, but I fairly 
 shared both with them ; and I can boast that I 
 never subjected any animals under my control 
 to induce suffering, to gratify any propensity of 
 my own. 
 
 If I have advocated as strongly as I have done 
 in all my writings, the participating in and en- 
 joyment of field sports, as producing a manliness 
 of mind and hardihood of frame that have (as 
 yet) characterised my countrymen, I have, I 
 am happy to say and feel, equally advocated 
 kindness and humanity to the animals that 
 contribute to such enjoyments. Had I not done 
 so, I should never have been selected as one that 
 others are pleased to think a proper person to 
 write '*the Cause of the Quadruped;" for under 
 such title it was proposed to bring the present 
 little Essay out. I must confess the title was 
 altered by myself, and must solicit pardon while 
 stating my reason for making the the alteration. 
 "The Cause of the Quadruped " only intimated 
 
XU PREFACE. 
 
 it was with an eye to his benefit the essaj^ was 
 written, and I feared such impression would not 
 be favourable to its circulation. If in this par- 
 ticular I erred in judgment, I here offer my 
 humble apology. 
 
 H. H. 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 " Indocti discant et ament meminisse peritis.' 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that among the numerous 
 works extant, relative to such animals as are in 
 daily use among us, so little has been written as 
 regards a proper humanity towards them. In 
 saying it is remarkable, I by no means intend to say, 
 or even infer, that it is surprising ; at least it is not 
 so to me, for knowing man as I do, I should only 
 be surprised if more had been written^ on the 
 subject than has been done ; for it is not sufficiently 
 evident that kindness to anything, so far affects the 
 interest of the pocket as to make it a popular theme. 
 If it was a self-evident fact that it did, the country 
 
 B 
 
2 BIPEDS AT^T) QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 would be inundated by works of all sorts and sizes, 
 and written by all sorts of persons, on the subject. 
 If we were even to produce a work shewing how the 
 lives of animals (even that of the favourite one, the 
 horse,) could be rendered happy and comfortable to 
 the animal individually, without any peculiar pecu- 
 niary advantage to the owner, it would not be bought ; 
 or if it was, and read, its precepts would not be 
 attended to by one person in five hundred ; but if we 
 could pen a treatise in which we could shew how, 
 by increased suffering to the animal, he could be 
 made to live without cost of keep, or by diminished 
 cost, and that without diminishing his value, all 
 the disposable press of the country would barely 
 suffice to print a publication imparting so invaluable 
 a secret ; and 1 greatly fear, that in the truly money- 
 loving countries of England and Scotland, the 
 system would be more acted upon than in any other. 
 The Arab, from his known fondness of his horse, 
 might probably prove an exception ; but I am not 
 aware of another. Go where we will, (though 
 perhaps in a less degree than among ourselves,) 
 
BIPEDS AXD QUADEUPEDS. 3 
 
 money sets at defiance, more or less, the breach of 
 love, friendship, honour, kindness, and in bitter 
 truth, honesty itself. It predominates from the 
 extremest points of latitude and longitude, wherein 
 is found the native of civilised nations. If we go 
 to the " land of the cypress and myrtle," even in 
 that elysium, even there, "where all bvit the spirit of 
 man is divine," man is found in all his deformity of 
 selfishness, avarice, and disregard of the feelings of 
 aught but self ; how then, in a country where the 
 large majority of its inhabitants are, figuratively 
 speaking, born in trade, where the " make money 
 honestly if you can — if not, " &c., is inculcated into 
 the almost unbreeched urchin, are we to expect that 
 finer, or better feelings, can rise over the one para- 
 mount to all others, namely, the love of gain ? To 
 this we may attribute the leading cause of so much 
 cruelty to animals as is daily shewn by man. 
 
 It would afford me much pleasure could I shew 
 that in all, and every case, the owner of an animal 
 suff'ers in a pecuniary way by ill using him. Could 
 I do so, neither I nor any other person need write 
 
 B 2 
 
* BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 another word on the subject ; no law would be 
 required to punish brutality, no police to prevent its 
 infliction, no commendation for the absence of it ; 
 interest would at once eff'ect that which neither law, 
 shame, nor eulogium, would produce. 
 
 Nothing injures any cause more than making any 
 assertions, or using any arguments, that can be 
 absolutely refuted, for if this is done as regards 
 either, it throws a doubt on all that remains ; and 
 I am aware there are cases where, though sickening 
 and disgusting to witness, or even hear of, pecu- 
 niary gain is the result of brutal treatment of 
 animals, possessed by miscreants of various sorts, 
 who hesitate on no disgraceful act if it tends to 
 their interest to put it in practice ; it is better 
 therefore to allow at once a truth that we cannot 
 controvert ; and, with such as would avail them- 
 selves of such degrading source of gain, we can 
 only trust to the strong arm of the law, and the 
 vigilance of those who, in a commendable spirit, 
 devote a portion of their time to the detection 
 and punishment of such offenders, as the means of 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 5 
 
 diminishing the infliction of sufl'ering on animals, 
 whose nature and disposition shew far less of the 
 brute than that of their merciless masters. 
 
 There is, however, another error, that is by no 
 means an uncommon one for those to run into who 
 deprecate any particular pursuit, or conduct, in 
 others ; this is, their enthusiasm in the cause they 
 take up is apt to lead them to describe acts that 
 only might be better left undone, as absolutely re- 
 prehensible, and others that are only reprehensible, 
 as directly flagitious ; the doing this only tends to 
 bring on, first, a want of confidence in what they 
 say, on the part of those to whom they address 
 themselves ; secondly, a denial of the truth and vali- 
 dity of the arguments produced ; and lastly, a dogged 
 determination to set them at defiance. 
 
 I think it more than probable that, in what I 
 may say in the present essay, I shall be thought, 
 by the amiable instigator of it, not to have gone far 
 enough in stringent reprehension of some acts and 
 pursuits, that to her may appear as cruel and unjus- 
 tifiable ; but I must bear in mind that in writing it 
 
6 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 I have a twofold duty to perform — one to the cause 
 I have taken in hand, the other to the public ; and, 
 independent of other considerations, I feel shall best 
 advocate that cause by speaking of such acts and 
 jDursuits with justness and impartiality, and measur- 
 ing the quantum of their demerits (where such 
 exist) by the standard that a personal participation 
 in them has taught me to believe to be a true one. 
 
 I have frequently heard a somewhat singular 
 hypothesis brought forward in excuse for unkind- 
 ness towards the brute creation, nam.ely, that " they 
 were sent for our use." It would ill become me, 
 on any occasion, to dispute, or perhaps enter into 
 discussion of, dogmas of a spiritual nature, and most 
 certainly I do not mean to enter on such spiritual 
 controversy here ; but a remark or two on such 
 matters, where they bear directly on the subject in 
 hand, may I trust be held as allowable. 
 
 It is quite true we are told that the great Creator 
 of all things said, on creating man, that he was to 
 subdue, and have dominion over, all other living 
 things : to what degree that dominion was meant to 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 7 
 
 extend, I believe was not particularised. It might 
 only mean that man, by his superiority of mind, was 
 to subdue, so far as to prevent animals of a ferocious 
 kind doing him injury ; and let man, in his arro- 
 gance and self-sufficiency, keep in mind that if on 
 his formation his Creator blessed him, he also 
 blessed the fowls and the beasts, after he had made 
 them. He said he had made roots, and other vege- 
 table matter, for the food of man ; he also said he 
 had made herbage and other provender for all 
 other living things, thus shewing their wants and 
 comforts were his care. Shall man then dare to 
 hold, or presume to think, their wants and comforts 
 beneath his notice ? let him, with all his real and 
 self-imagined superiority, call to mind, then, when 
 he ill uses the less-gifted denizen of the world, he is 
 abusing a creature that has been blessed, in common 
 with himself, by the same Omnipotence that created 
 and fashioned both. 
 
 If man feels so perfectly satisfied that the whole 
 and sole purport of the formation of other animals 
 was that they might be useful to him, without their 
 
8 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 life, liberty, and enjoyment, being contemplated, I 
 would beg leave to ask him for what were hyenas, 
 crocodiles, alligators, rattle-snakes, vultures, or even 
 the beautiful zebra, made ? If these were in- 
 tended solely for our use, they strike me as rather an 
 anomalous class, as destined to servitude. If they 
 are so, then how limited is the power of mind 
 and arm in man, when he cannot even command the 
 services of the ass, for the zebra is no more. Let 
 man also remember and allow, that many animals, in 
 bodily attributes, and some in ingenuity, are very 
 much his superiors. It is true that the lion trapped 
 and caged, may prove the cunning and invention 
 of man, and man may from such circumstance vaunt 
 himself on his superiority ; he may say even the 
 Hyrcian tiger and Nubian lion were made for we ; 
 but let him meet either with only the natural powers 
 given to each for attack and defence, man would 
 soon find himself in a situation that might authorize 
 the denizen of the forest to feel that man was made 
 for him. 
 
 No one, of course, doubts the superiority of man 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADKTJPEDS. 9 
 
 over every other animal ; but it is in mind only 
 his superiority consists ; in proof of which, render 
 him idiot, and he is seen in a state of pitiable 
 degradation far beneath the majority of those ani- 
 mals that his mind only enables him to cope with. 
 If, therefore, in point of mind he is so far their 
 superior, let him at least use its attributes so as 
 to render him in point of disposition their superior 
 also. How often, how far too often, do we see it 
 the reverse. 
 
 I should say that the leading causes of suiFering to 
 animals are the four following. First, as the " head 
 and front" of offences of this kind, is the cupidity and 
 avarice of man. Secondly, the want of knowledge 
 of what really does occasion such suffering. Thirdly, 
 a morbid and contemptible vanity, that often produces 
 the infliction of suffering, from a desire to shew the 
 superiority of the animal we possess, or our own in 
 what we can do on, or with him, and lastly, and 
 let us hope more rarely, from a mind devoid of the 
 common feelings of humanity. Let no one fancy 
 that the man who wants humanity to one class of 
 
^^ BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 living beings will be humane to any other ; he who 
 is a brute to the brute, will be the same in all his 
 relative duties in life; he will be brutal as a husband, 
 brutal as a father, and brutal as a friend, for his 
 mind is brutal. Boys we know, for we daily see it, 
 are generally cruel to animals. This not arising 
 from provocation, but an innate love of tyranny, a 
 true though by no means flattering type of man ; 
 let us, however, hope that the cruelty of boys is 
 often occasioned by want of reflection, and let 
 us farther hope we may never meet with such a 
 demon as a man who would be cruel from a sheer 
 love of cruelty. 
 
 From whatever cause brutality originates, this is 
 quite clear, the efi'ect of it is the same to whatsoever 
 or whomsoever is subjected to it. Passion, that so 
 many persons hold as an excuse for what is inexcu- 
 sable, I consider the worst plea that can be ofi'ered. 
 A man of usual equanimity of mind may commit a 
 fatal act, or one involving the risk of its being so ; 
 if he does, there can be little doubt but that Ke has 
 received provocation, which, though it might not ex- 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 11 
 
 cuse, would at least palliate the act : even if he had 
 acted under erroneous impression in that one act, it 
 is very improbable that such a man would ever re- 
 peat such an offence while he breathed ; but with a 
 passionate man, neither relative, friend, servant, nor 
 animal, is ever safe for a moment. Such a man has 
 only the choice of being thought one of two characters, 
 a savage who will gratify brutal passion if irritated 
 at any moment, any where, and on any person or 
 thing — or a fool, who cannot, or will not, call reason 
 to his aid before he acts with blind and brute vio- 
 lence. A passionate person usually excuses himself 
 by saying it is soon over ; perhaps it is, after he has 
 said so offensive a thing to a friend that obliges the 
 latter to call him out ; so hurtful a one to an amia- 
 ble woman (unfortunate enough to be his wife), that 
 she never forgets it ; or after he has given a blow to 
 some one, or something, that makes a cripple for 
 life. But there is another reason why passionate 
 people fancy their soon forgetting is an excuse for 
 their conduct ; they get into a passion for trifles that 
 would hardly have called forth a word of reprimand 
 
12 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 from others, and then, because they soon become calm 
 where they ought not to have been at all ruffled, 
 make a merit of not contmuing to make brutes or 
 fools of themselves for hours, when they should not 
 have done so for one minute. I would as strongly 
 counsel a woman to refuse a passionate man for a 
 husband, as I would a maniac ; the only difference 
 between the two being, the aberration of intellect 
 of the one is continual, in the other as circumstances 
 call it forth. If therefore, uncontrolled temper in 
 man produces such dire effects to his fellow-creature, 
 what acts of brutality does it not often produce 
 towards objects under his absolute control ? 
 
 Having made these preliminary and cursory re- 
 marks on the principal causes of the sufferings 
 that animals are exposed to, I will now more 
 clearly particularize the classes of persons the most 
 prone to inflict them, and will begin with those the 
 most actuated by their avarice to do so. At the, 
 head of these are a class now all but extinct, namely, 
 Coachowners. As a tolerably good four-in-hand 
 coachman myself, my driving propensities made me 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 13 
 
 acquainted with many of these, most of them highly- 
 respectable men, well-conducted, and well-disposed 
 in their general duties of life. Yet I can only call 
 to my recollection one who paid the slightest regard 
 to the sufferings of his horses — unless such suffering 
 was likely to end in pecuniary loss. Make it but 
 the interest of a coachowner to put on, or put down 
 an opposition, the scenes they would without com- 
 punction contemplate, and the acts they would with- 
 out hesitation sanction, were disgraceful to human 
 nature. If an unfortunate animal died shortly after 
 being unharnessed (no uncommon occurrence), they 
 "■ sorrowed" not " o'er the expiring horse," but the 
 few pounds he was worth, and very few they were ; 
 for where the greatest extent of exertion was re- 
 quired, and to contend with which sound limbs, a 
 hale age, and undiminished powers and constitution 
 were wanted, avarice put all the half worn-out 
 cripples of the stock. 'Tis true they did their work, 
 but in agony, and the double thong and whipcord 
 made them bring the coach in at its time. The pro- 
 prietor who killed or maimed the most horses, or at 
 
14 BIPEDS AND QUADllUPEDS. 
 
 least caused its being done, was complimented as 
 being a " spirited coach proprietor," an appellation, 
 I doubt not, many have often heard of and seen in 
 print. "• He does not care more about losing a horse 
 than he would a rat," was a eulogium meant to be 
 indicative of the liberal turn of mind of a man 
 who ought to have been execrated for his avarice 
 and brutality. The majority of persons reading of 
 " that spirited coach proprietor," most probably held 
 it as implying that he expended more money for their 
 accommodation, and consequently was satisfied with 
 less profit than others. Not a bit ; his being spirited 
 only consisted in his never hesitating to spend a few 
 extra hundreds on any occasion, where he saw an ad- 
 vantage in so doing. He would sink five hundred in 
 an opposition, and immolate horses by the dozen, to 
 bring on the ruin of a fellow-coachowner, and " drive 
 his coach off the road," that he might have that road 
 to himself; his " spirit" in this was often about as 
 laudable as his mercy to the horses sinking in the 
 fray. Yet such of the public as were not deterred 
 by apprehension of injury to their own persons. 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 15 
 
 would patronize the coach because " it went so fast," 
 whereas they ought in no measured terms to have 
 expressed their abhorrence of the suffering it oc- 
 casioned. Latterly, however, proprietors really 
 got spirited in a better way, for they found their 
 interest in so doing ; the pace had become great no 
 doubt, but they got horses equal to it, and very su- 
 perior men to drive them. Then, as if what was 
 right was not to last, steam put an end to it, for 
 we did not find any of the " spirited coach-proprie- 
 tors" run a coach longer than it paid, nor can any one 
 blame them for it. They are, however, gone. 
 
 Postmasters have been another class against 
 whom, if we could conceive the spirits of horses 
 could be reanimated, they would rise in bitter array. 
 So long as it was supposed nature would last, to 
 enable a horse to drag a carriage at the required 
 pace, there were no limits to the cupidity of the 
 postmaster ; no matter what number of miles a 
 horse might have gone, if he could earn more by 
 another stage, he would be sent ; and, on such 
 occasions, I am sorry to say the public seldom 
 
16 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 evinced the slightest regard to the state of the 
 horses drawing them : they might see the postboy 
 using the whip and spur as much as he pleased, 
 no enquiry was made ; but, on the contrary, if the 
 pace was not quite equal to the impatience of the 
 traveller, an angry reprimand on that head was 
 most likely the only remark made. Half the per- 
 sons availing themselves of the use of hired animals, 
 seem to consider that their being hired does away 
 with all calls of interest or humanity in the parties 
 using them ; such ideas are neither honest, just, 
 nor manly. It is dishonest to injure, or suffer to be 
 injured, what belongs to another, if we can prevent 
 it ; it is unjust to do, or suffer to be done, that towards 
 another, we would not permit in our own case ; 
 and I hold it one of the extremes of unmanliness, 
 to be the injuring or ill using anything that we are 
 aware will not, or cannot, retaliate. Many a savage 
 would kick an inoffensive cur, though his coward 
 heart would quail before the steady look of the 
 nobler blood-hound, a true though degrading em- 
 blem of his usual conduct among his fellow-men ; 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 17 
 
 in such opinion I am borne out by far better autho- 
 rity than my own remarks through life — 
 
 " Man spurns the worm, but pauses ere he wake 
 The slumbering venom of the folded snake." 
 
 It may be asked whether we are bound to shew 
 the same attention to a post, or hired horse, as to 
 one of our own ? I will endeavour to shew how far 
 this obligation goes, or, at least, how far I conceive it 
 does ; to assist me in this, I will state personal cases. 
 To the best of my recollection, I never hired a horse 
 to ride in my life, and never to drive but on four 
 occasions ; the first was on a leader having galled 
 his shoulder, so the hired horse went with, and was 
 treated like my own horses, during the three or four 
 days I used him. On another occasion I hired a 
 gig horse to go to a fair, as I did not choose to risk 
 my own getting a cold, or kicked. In the third 
 case, I hired a pair of phaeton horses to go to a 
 pic-nic party of two days' duration ; and the fourth 
 was pretty similar, namely, to go and dine alfresco 
 in Windsor Park. The work on all these occasions 
 was very light, and the horses as kindly, that is 
 
 c 
 
18 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 properly treated, as if they were valuable ones ; but 
 I think it perfectly fair to risk twenty-five pounds 
 in danger where we might not a hundred; and 
 further, what might, and probably would, bring on 
 cold and lasting disease to an animal treated as 
 valuable ones are, would not do so with those used 
 to hardier endurance. If a man has occasion to 
 expose an animal to heats and cold, bad roads, 
 inclement weather, change of stables, and water, 
 and provender, as he can get them, he would natu- 
 rally take the least valuable one he had, and the one 
 least likely to feel their effects ; so on such occasions 
 there is neither injustice to the owner, nor cruelty to 
 the animal, to hire one ; for nothing is intended to 
 be done with him that the person driving would not 
 do with his own, if he had one fitted for such pur- 
 pose : but we are in no shape authorised in pre- 
 meditately subjecting an animal to suffering, or 
 undue exertion, because he is unfortunate enough to 
 be hired. If I wanted to go a long but reasonable 
 distance, and had no horse by me in the habit of, 
 or condition for such an undertaking, I should hire, 
 
BIPEDS AND QTJADKUPEDS. 19 
 
 upon the same principle that if it was necessary ten 
 miles should be walked under a mid-day sun, or 
 inclement weather, I should go myself, if I had no 
 one else to send, instead of permitting my wife, 
 daughter, or any delica^te female, to undergo such un- 
 dertaking ; neither myself nor man would by this un- 
 dergo more than some bodily inconvenience, but it 
 would create very gi-eat suffering to the others. What 
 an animal can do with fair and mere ordinary fatigue, 
 there is nothing improper in hiring him or calling 
 on him to do ; but I would refuse my hand to — I 
 would not call friend — any man who would subject an 
 animal to more than this, because he was a hired one. 
 Now we will see how far, and in what kind 
 of case avarice would have, and often has, induced 
 people to hire. We will suppose a party of four 
 persons wanted to go thirty-four miles out of town 
 and back ; this, at the old coach fares, would cost 
 about one pound sixteen, a shilling each to the 
 coachman, and say a couple amongst them to guard 
 or porters, making two pounds two ; instead of this, 
 they hire a phaeton, or probably, in their term, a 
 
 c 2 
 
20 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 phe-aton for the day, for one pound one ; the horse, 
 decently fed, would cost five shillings, ostlers two, 
 turnpikes three, making one pound eleven, thus 
 saving eleven shillings. To do this, they subject a 
 poor brute, perhaps part of the time under a glaring 
 sun, to drag them sixty-eight miles ; the ladies, 
 sitting with perfect composure, hearing and seeing 
 him whaled along the last ten miles in all the 
 suffering of exhausted nature : fortunate animal he 
 may consider himself, if increased pace is not 
 demanded of him on nearing the house of the consi- 
 derate party, in order to shew in what superior 
 manner they came along. 
 
 But this act, merciless as it shows, was possibly 
 not achieved without stratagem — in fact, direct and 
 flagitious falsehood having been used. An owner 
 would not let a single horse to draw four ersons and 
 a phaeton nearly seventy miles for a guinea, and, if 
 a respectable and at all merciful man, not for increased 
 price. So on the hiring the representation is made 
 that the destination is Hounslow to lunch. Salt Hill 
 to spend the day, Cranford bridge to tea in the way 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 21 
 
 back, and return in the cool of the evening ; so, in 
 the gentleman hirer's terms, " the horse will have 
 plenty of time for rest and refreshment." And so he 
 would had such been the truth, and only a fair and 
 moderate day's work ; but instead of once contem- 
 plating the dining at Salt Hill, where I, at least, 
 never found such a thing could be achieved for a 
 trifle, they well knew they intended to go where 
 they could dine for nothing, namely, at some relative 
 or friend's house in the neighbourhood of Twyford, 
 and where, if accommodation for the animal was to 
 be attained, the item of his cost would be diminished. 
 In going, instead of the lunch at Hounslow, and the 
 promised rest and refreshment at Salt Hill, a bit of 
 hay (and water to any extent the ostler chose to give 
 it, or possibly the thirsty animal chose to take it at 
 a trough, in the middle of the journey) sufficed, or 
 was made to do so, while the party complaining of 
 the heat consoled themselves inside the house with 
 cold negus, or a cool tankard. On arriving at the 
 friend's, if the horse could be taken in, a reward was 
 furtively promised the lout who took him, to " feed 
 
22 BIPEDS AND QUADKtrPEDS. 
 
 him well," as that would cost nothing ; but whether 
 he did or not, depend on it the hirer never took the 
 trouble to ascertain. If, on the other hand, he was 
 sent to the nearest public house, a quartern of corn 
 was ordered, but probably never given. If the host 
 entertained the animal, on the party leaving, sixpence, 
 with a smile that was intended to convey, " I sup- 
 pose you are not often in such luck," was given the 
 boy or man ; or if an ostler brought back the 
 equipage, the same miserable stipend was grudgingly 
 given, as the miserable quartern of oats and bit of 
 hay ordered had to be paid for. Keturning, the dust 
 and fatigue probably did compel the party to take 
 the promised tea at Cranford bridge, and the fear of 
 not otherwise being taken home in the expected 
 time, produced the order of another liberal feed of 
 a quartern of oats, unless the horse had been fed at 
 the friend's, which havingbeenow/ysome twenty- three 
 miles off, it was unanimously agreed he could want 
 no more. Of the result of this and their return over 
 the last few miles, I have already spoken. Such is 
 the fate, and such the treatment many a poor hired 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 23 
 
 animal undergoes ; such is the meanness, the lies, 
 for it is no other used in hiring, and such the cruelty 
 often practised by despicable avarice, and the absence 
 of all proper feeling that should emanate from one 
 calling himself man. 
 
 I may be accused of making somewhat more 
 stringent remarks on, and indeed accusations against 
 the selfishness and want of feeling on the part of 
 persons in general, as regards animals, than they may 
 think deserved, or that I am warranted in doing. If 
 they are so, I hope it will be remembered, that I am not 
 writing to amuse, that I have not personally selected 
 my subject, but that being fixed on, I am only doing 
 what some one else would have been deputed to do, 
 had I not been flattered by being held as capable of 
 judging how far the cause calls for such observa- 
 tions as I may make : of course what I say does not 
 apply indiscriminately to all persons ; those whom 
 the still voice of conscience does not reprove, will, I 
 am sure, applaud the motive of the work. Even 
 those who may, or must, allow themselves to be in 
 the reverse case, will hesitate ere they venture to 
 
24 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 censure that, however irate they may feel against the 
 writer. Soliciting pardon for these fugitive and di- 
 gressive remarks, I now return to my subject. 
 
 Our street carriages for hire are a strong proof 
 that my accusations are not unmerited, and here 
 master, man, and the public must in many instances 
 add to my category of the merciless. All the master, 
 or rather the generality of masters, care about is, 
 that so much money is brought home in a given time ; 
 that the carriage is brought in without damage, that 
 would put him to expense in repairing it ; and that 
 the horse comes home in such state as will not 
 diminish his value, or prevent his working the next 
 day. He sees, without remorse, his animal start in 
 the morning with a pair of fore feet that he is well 
 aware it is agony to put to the ground, and that 
 every step he takes is torture ; nor does the idea of 
 selling a horse so circumstanced ever enter his head, 
 and for this reason, if he happens to be a good, 
 game, and high-couraged animal, with such a disease 
 he will work for months, perhaps years. Should 
 some one make a remark on the cruelty of sending 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 25 
 
 out such a cripple, " Oh, he will go well enough 
 
 when he gets warm ;" probably he may, but how will 
 
 he feel when he gets cool ? might be asked. This 
 
 is a point neither master nor man either think or 
 
 care about ; but I will tell how the horse will 
 
 feel : about as the reader would, if compelled to 
 
 walk, stand, and run all day in a pair of wooden 
 
 shoes, and those far too small for him ; to this may 
 
 possibly be added a spavined hock, the pain of which 
 
 I will describe. It is similar, on first starting, to what 
 
 a man would feel if the fluid that lubricates the 
 
 joint of the knee, was dried up, and the bones, in a 
 
 state of inflammation, grated on each other. Still, 
 
 in such a state are unfortunate animals often made 
 
 to work. I saw such a case not long ago. 
 
 Another case of barbarity I saw about to take 
 place very lately. I observed a cab for hire, 
 starting from the owner's stables in the morning ; 
 the horse refused to face the collar, and a man was 
 at each hind wheel, shoving the carriage after him. 
 I suspected the cause, as the horse showed no indi- 
 cation of restiveness ; I ordered the fellow to stop ; 
 
26 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 I lifted up the collar, and saw such a pair of, not 
 merely galled, but absolutely diseased, shoulders, 
 as were sickening to look at ; I took his number 
 and dared him to take the cab on to the stand with 
 that horse. It ended in his putting another in. 
 
 The reader may quite dismiss any surmise, if he 
 entertains one, that I am likely to magnify 
 grievances of this sort, or represent that which is 
 only ordinary inconvenience and endurance, as 
 intense suffering. From some natural or physical 
 cause, I am personally most singularly insensible to 
 bodily pain ; it is fortunate for me that I am so, for 
 few men have been hurt in various ways as much 
 as myself; I, therefore, am not likely to give way to 
 maudlin feeling as regards common endurance in 
 man or beast; so it may be depended on, that 
 when I use the term " suffering," it is so to the full 
 extent of the implication. 
 
 The class of men who drive these street cabs for 
 employers, are not usually those from whom we 
 may expect much feeling or consideration for the 
 animal under their control ; bat they are rendered 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 27 
 
 worse by the avarice of their masters. Their wages 
 are so low, that they depend chiefly on the extra 
 work they can get out of the horse, who has, not 
 figuratively speaking but absolutely, to work for 
 master and man ; thus, after earning the required 
 sum, as his day's work, for the former, he begins 
 his labour for the latter. This might be no great 
 hardship on the horse, or reprehensible conduct on 
 the part of the driver, if he only took fares leading 
 towards home ; but supposing the cab to be in the 
 Strand, and the animal's home to be in Moor-fields, 
 if a fare offered to go to Knightsbridge or Brompton, 
 the unfortunate brute would be driven there for the 
 benefit of the man, though a full day's work had 
 been performed for the master. Let any one cast 
 his eye on the cabs he sometimes sees returning to 
 their home ; let him observe the jaded gait of the 
 poor horse after the harass of his day's exertion. 
 
 See that fine old grey, now white with age ; his 
 head alone would suffice to shew the high breeding 
 of himself and ancestors. The small taper nose, 
 whose nostril is now distended with pain and 
 
28 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 exhaustion, shews plainly the cross of the Arab that 
 had been resorted to, to bring an English breed to 
 the highest caste. That portion of the frontal bone 
 arching the eye, still shews, by its prominence and 
 capacity, that it once contained an orb bright and 
 full, sparkling with intelligence and noble spirit ; 
 his fine form shews where once strongly developed 
 muscle spoke of speed, endurance, and powers, the 
 pride of his master, the terror of the turf, and the 
 admiration of the field. He for whom once a trusty 
 groom was held insufficient without the superinten- 
 dence of a superior, at a cost of at least trvo hundred 
 a year to his employer; — he for whom the very 
 elements were watched, that his clothing might be 
 arranged to prevent their blowing too rudely on his 
 polished coat and tender skin ; — he for whom the 
 sensitive feelings of man were not trusted to, but 
 the thermometer consulted, that the atmosphere he 
 breathed in his stable should be precisely at the 
 height most conducive to his health and comfort ; 
 — he for whom the hand and head of the horseman 
 were once requisite to prevent his generous spirit 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADEUPEDS. 29 
 
 exhausting his wonderful powers, by over-willing 
 exertion, in the flying chase ; — see him now, 
 
 '• Scourged like a panniered ass." 
 He drags, mechanically, his weary limbs one after the 
 other, all but insensible even to pain ; his outstretched 
 neck shews one of the last sure symptoms of ex- 
 hausted nature ; that eye of fire, now shews sunken, 
 glazed, opaque, motionless, and seemingly fixed on 
 vacancy. 
 
 Reader, you have oft (let us hope thoughtlessly) 
 availed yourself of a vehicle where the animal draw- 
 ing it was the prototype of the poor grey ; ay, 
 and have added to his sufierings by the promise of 
 extra reward — for what ? for extra and detestable 
 cruelty on the part of the driver, to gratify your 
 impatience, or save five minutes of time, that, in 
 ordinary circumstances, you must use for better 
 purpose than your fellow-man, if that five minutes 
 was destined to any purpose that could be admitted 
 even as palliation for the infliction of barbarity on 
 the wreck of,a noble animal. 
 
 If by the foregoing description I may have happily 
 
30 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 awakened the sympathy of some heart of generous 
 feeling, a still sadder cause for that sympathy exists 
 in the case of those animals worked in the night 
 cabs. Here, as used to be the case in night coaches, 
 such horses as public observation and reprehension 
 would prevent owners working in the honest face of 
 day, are, under the veil of darkness, and the di- 
 minished number of observers, given into the hands 
 of a set of low, brutal savages, whose acts, habits, 
 and, in sooth, in some cases, whose persons policy 
 requires concealment by the silent night. Here is 
 little check indeed on what the lowest specimens of 
 humanity maybe induced to do by avarice, drunken- 
 ness, or brutish disposition. He, or her, returning 
 from some scene of gaiety, hear stroke after stroke 
 of the whip mercilessly applied, and hear it with 
 perfect apathy : is it the apathy of the heart, or 
 that of thought ? the reader must answer that ques- 
 tion for himself. But to shew that it is one of these, 
 I will put a question that I only ask him to answer to 
 himself : Have you never, after your 5ars have told 
 you such treatment of the animal drawing had taken 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 31 
 
 place, made this only remark, " The man drove very 
 \vell," or " He brought us home very quick"? If re- 
 collection bring back nothing similar to the mind, I 
 bow with submission, in allowing that in your case 
 my hypothesis does not apply. 
 
 Let every man, however, and every class of men, 
 have fair play and justice done them ; the cab 
 owners and cab drivers of 1853 are no more like 
 what they were in 1845, than are their horses like 
 the wretched animals who drew hackney coaches 
 in 1800. I really believe we are indebted in a great 
 measure for this improvement to Hansom ; he intro- 
 duced a superior running vehicle, very superior 
 horses, and was prudent enough to also secure su- 
 perior men to drive them. We read a vast deal of 
 twaddle and misrepresentation that editors of news- 
 papers are pestered with, from " a Victim," " a 
 Sufferer," and the Lord knows who, for the editor 
 usually does not, though his courtesy induces him to 
 insert the communication. But the accusations are 
 often quite unfounded. I can only say, I very rarely 
 indeed meet with extortion or insolence in a cabman. 
 Some may say or think I am particularly fortunate 
 
32 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 in this ; not a bit, it merely is the result of a little 
 foresight on my part. I never engage a cab with a 
 half-starved, miserable-looking animal attached to it, 
 or a dirty, slovenly fellow driving it. If the horse 
 looks in fair flesh, the vehicle decently clean, and 
 the man cleanly also, it shows there is respectabi- 
 lity of feeling and intention in master or man, 
 whichever he may be ; and where a wish to make a 
 respectable appearance is manifested, it usually in- 
 duces to a reasonable demand and proper civility 3 
 and I firmly believe half these self-styled victims and 
 sufferers are quite as unreasonable in the service they 
 want performed for a given sum, as any cabman can 
 be from what he demands ; but if people will engage 
 or get into cabs where the appearance of the animal, 
 vehicle, and man evince brutality and disregard of 
 respectability in the latter, they cannot be surprised 
 if they meet with extortion in the demand, and abuse 
 if it is not complied with. Such are the kind of 
 street vehicles (and my picture is not too highly 
 coloured) that people often engage. Let no one en- 
 courage such, and they would shortly disappear. 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 33 
 
 The butcher has been so proverbial as to his want 
 of common humanity to his horse, that " butchering 
 a horse," or being " a butcher on a horse," are terms 
 not unfrequently used in the hunting-field, in repre- 
 hension of a man who rides his horse unfairly, 
 that is, who evinces want of consideration or feeling_in 
 the riding him. In the butcher's case, avarice causes 
 his inhumanity, avarice induces him to purchase the 
 lowest-priced animal that can be made perform his 
 daily severe duties : his object is to get the most pos- 
 sible work out of the animal, at the least possible 
 cost ; and the boy or man who goes his rounds, and 
 over the greatest extent of ground in the least time, 
 ranks highest in the estimation of his master. 
 
 On one occasion I went and represented to a 
 master butcher, the inhumanity I daily saw practised 
 on his wretched pony, by a young demon of a boy 
 in his employ. The reply I got was, " I mustn't 
 say nothing to him ; he is the best boy I ever had, 
 and gets over his work the quickest ; and the pony 
 don't matter, for I only gave four pounds for him." 
 Did none of his customers ever see the wretched 
 
 D 
 
34 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 specimen of anatomy and suffering standing at their 
 door? Doubtless manyhad, and possibly thoughtlessly 
 laughed at his haggard look ; but if the sirloin was 
 good, what mattered how it was brought ? 
 
 I have mentioned a few classes as a type of scores 
 of beings whose accursed (for I can use no more 
 appropriate term) love of gain, blunts every feeling 
 that ought to constitute the man. We will now 
 mention causes not absolutely flagitious, but equally 
 certain to produce suffering to animals, namely, igno- 
 rance of what does occasion it, and consequently 
 want of knowledge of the means of preventing its in- 
 fliction. It is really surprising to witness the extent 
 of this want of knowledge, even with many in the 
 daily habit of having animals under their care. I 
 have said the acts of such persons are not absolutely 
 reprehensible: I allow the acts in themselves are not, 
 no cruelty or un*kindness being intended, but I 
 hold the ignorance to be greatly and justly repre- 
 hensible; for whether we undertake the care of youth, 
 the command of the soldier or sailor, the control of 
 servants, or the management of animals of instinct 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 35 
 
 only, it is our boimden duty to qualify ourselves 
 for either task, where a want of knowledge would be 
 certain to cause injustice, inconvenience, and suffer- 
 ing to any person, or any thing subject to our 
 control. If suffering in any case arises from our 
 ignorance, we are the cause of it as much as if 
 we designedly inflicted it, the only difference being 
 (and I allow it to be great as regards our estimate 
 of persons), in the first instance the fault is that 
 of the head, in the latter the crime is that of the 
 heart ; but the effect is the same to those who suffer 
 by it. 
 
 My attention in this essay has been particularly 
 directed towards the horse, as being the noblest and, 
 in accordance with his pretensions, the most ill-used, 
 or rather the most abused animal under the control 
 of man. Some one may ask, can w^e call that animal 
 ill-used, or abused, in the possession of which, and 
 in the care of whom, fortunes are sometimes spent ? 
 Certainly not, while his looks and energies can con- 
 tribute to the vanity or pleasures of man ; but when 
 those fleeting attributes are gone, what is his 
 
36 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 fate then ? Shuddering humanity " echoes," not 
 " where," but " what ?" 
 
 Notwithstanding I am desired to make the horse 
 the principal object of my observations here, as 
 being the most abused ; and though personally I 
 hold the Race horse and the Hunter ought never to 
 be contaminated by the touch of any but those who 
 can appreciate their high standing among, nay, 
 superiority to all other animals, save man ; — I, who 
 hold that pugs, poodles, mere pet spaniels, et hoc 
 genus omnis, ought never to be born unless they could 
 be taught to wait on the fox-hound j — I, with all 
 these opinions, or perhaps prejudices, would in no 
 way wish to confine my advocacy of kindness to 
 the favourites I look on with so much respect. 
 " Respect!" echoes some reader, with a look showing 
 astonishment, and perhaps derision. Yes, reader, I 
 have written it, and cavil at the word as you will, 
 and condemn him who wrote it as you may, I res- 
 pect race-horse, hunter, and fox- hound, and detest 
 a pug ; yet I would no more ill-treat the latter than 
 I would the best race-horse, beneath whose flying 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 37 
 
 foot the scarcely-touched blade springs up again un- 
 injured. 
 
 I in no shape wish this essay on " Biped and Quad- 
 ruped" to be held as advocating that of kindness to 
 the horse alone. I will show I have as strongly 
 urged it towards that useful and usually harmless 
 animal, the cow. Her life, while it lasts, is usually 
 subject to less annoyance or injury, and more peace 
 and comfort than any other large domestic animal 
 that we appropriate to our use. I mention her, to 
 bring forward an instance where want of knowledge 
 of what is proper for an animal, produced beyond all 
 doubt much suffering. A relative of my own, as 
 kind-hearted a man as ever lived, a most kind and 
 considerate master to servants, his horses, dogs, and, 
 as he believed, to all animals, kept two cows for the 
 use of the family. He would almost dread a colder 
 wind than usual blowing on his hunter, though he 
 braved it in his own person ; he would have got out 
 of his bed had he heard one of his dogs howl in the 
 night, if he had been left exposed to its inclemency. 
 Yet would he allow, for he did, his cows to shiver 
 
38 BIPEDS AXD QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 through the coldest winter night, knee deep in frozen 
 snow, with icicles hanging from all parts of their 
 bodies, without the slightest shelter. This he saw 
 without one feeling of pity, not from any wish to be 
 cruel, but because he could not be persuaded they 
 suffered by it. It is true the same cold that would 
 have been perhaps death to one of his horses, might 
 create little inconvenience to the cow, accustomed to 
 the open air ; but the cow feels the pain of cold as 
 much as the racer or hunter, when the influence of 
 cold affects both in an equal degree. It is only in 
 the different degrees of cold, that the difference be- 
 tween the feelings of the two animals exists. Was 
 ignorance here an excuse ? most certainly not, it was 
 downright cruelty ; its only trifling palliation was, it 
 was not designed cruelty. 
 
 My task is now becoming one of peculiar delicacy, 
 for such it ever must, and ever should be held, where 
 woman is the theme. In most cases it is a delight- 
 ful one, the only difficulty being to procure a proper 
 offering for so fair a shrine ; unwelcome, then, be- 
 comes the task, for ungracious must appear the act 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 39 
 
 of him who points out the few, the very few sligiit 
 specks that dim perfection. 
 
 In mentioning such causes of suffering to animals 
 as originate from any fault of the heart or mind, I 
 have only alluded to man ; but now, when mention- 
 ing similar effects produced from want of knowledge 
 of the habits and feelings of animals, 1 must include 
 the other sex ; not in a vein of censure, but in 
 offering instruction, where and on what I am quite 
 sure they would seek instruction, if once shown 
 that by doing so, it would prevent their inflicting 
 one moment's pain on any inoffensive creature. 
 
 Women of all grades, as might naturally be ex- 
 pected, are very greatly in error as to what does 
 cause suffering to animals, horses in particular ; and 
 some ladies entertain the very erroneous, indeed 
 absurd notion, that any knowledge of this sort is not 
 only beneath their notice, but unfeminine ; I make 
 no more stringent observation to such ladies, than 
 by truly stating, I never heard such a remark made, 
 or idea entertained, by any woman of fashion, 
 education, sense, and good feeling. 
 
40 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 A remark was made to me by a young lady, since 
 I began this essay, to this effect, that " she thought 
 the subject, and the promoting its being written upon, 
 was a singular idea in a female." " I grant," said 
 I, " it is singular, very singular, and I never paid so 
 bad a compliment to your sex in my life as admitting 
 that it is so ; nor would it ever have suggested itself 
 to one whose mind was not of a very high order, or 
 who did not possess the moral courage to be quite in- 
 different to the opinion of the crowd, when certain the 
 motive will challenge the approbation of the highly 
 gifted, as to talent, cultivated mind, and generous 
 feeling, and in most cases as to position in life." 
 
 We will now see among what class of females a 
 want of knowledge of the management and habits 
 of animals exists in the greatest degree. It is 
 among those who, with a few hundreds a year, lead 
 a London life, enjoying certain comforts, super- 
 fashionable in dress and ultra-fashionable in ideas, 
 yet never being in a position to enjoy the possession 
 of animals (horses in particular), as objects of 
 pleasure, or show, (both proper for those of higher 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 41 
 
 pretensions,) such will often pretend to disregard 
 what they cannot possess ; they would far more show 
 themselves fitted for better things, by honestly allow- 
 ing they appreciated the luxury of possessing them. 
 When expressing themselves otherwise, they are 
 actuated by the same false and mistaken principle 
 as the low-born man, when he expresses his contempt 
 of high birth ; by which, when he does it, he merely 
 exhibits mind and ideas low as his origin. 
 
 As I before remarked, women are, more or less, 
 one and all, much mistaken in what is suffering to 
 animals, and on some points it is even commendable 
 their being so, or at all events of little consequence 
 were they to remain in the error, for it is one that 
 could produce no suffering ; for instance, a short 
 time since a lady at a race meeting observed to me, 
 that "the day was dreadfully hot for the poor horses 
 that had to run." Now this was in a very great de- 
 gree a mistaken sympathy, but the amiability of 
 mind and thought that caused it, made a very lovely 
 face look lovelier still; and I remarked with pleasure 
 the flush of pride that, on hearing the remark, lit 
 
42 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 up the face of one present, who, if " the course of 
 true love" does "run smooth," will be the for- 
 tunate possessor of one so lovely in mind as well as 
 form. 
 
 It is a very natural idea, that great exertion under 
 a glowing sun must produce great suffering. In reply 
 to this, as an abstract problem, I should of course 
 say, it certainly does ; but this requires some ex- 
 planation : great exertion, if it is only of very short 
 duration, is little more felt in a hot day than a cooler 
 one ; it is continued exertion, under such circum- 
 stances, that not only produces suffering, but often 
 kills. On the occasion I allude to, I quite horrified 
 my fair interlocutor, by telling her what most cer- 
 tainly was fact, namely, that the four posters who 
 had brought her family's carriage twelve miles, with 
 six inside, two servants in the rumble, and two 
 friends on the box, had undergone more suffering 
 from the heat, than would all the race horses at the 
 meeting puttogether — though there, heats weremostly 
 run. I will explain to the reader why this is, in 
 somewhat similar terms I used on the occasion 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 43 
 
 alluded to. The race-horse, comparatively speaking, 
 suffers nothing from the heat while running — in fact, 
 so far as mere atmospheric influence affects him, he 
 is, and feels, absolutely cooler while running, than 
 when walking ; and again, adverting to atmospheric 
 influence only, the faster he goes the cooler he feels, 
 for he then meets a current of air that he did not 
 in his walk ; in fact, he felt far more of the heat in 
 his walk to the race-course, than while running ; and 
 again, suppose situation prevents his being got under 
 shade, where he feels the enervating effects of the 
 heat is just when he would not be pitied, namely, 
 in being walked about the half hour between the 
 heats. We often see a race-horse win, or run a heat, 
 without, in technical phrase, "turning a hair;" but 
 suppose the reverse to be the case, and he sweats 
 profusely, probably this is constitutional habit ; but 
 be it so or not, he very possibly does not feel him- 
 self hotter, if so hot as his rival, who shows no such 
 effects of the race. Profuse perspiration tends to cool 
 the constitution, it is internal fever that consumes ; 
 half sweating a race-horse is not at all unlikely to 
 
44 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 bring on fever ; but if the sweat is so timed that, on 
 being scraped, the water runs freely and profusely 
 before the scraper, no after-mischief is likely to 
 occur, if common care is taken. 
 
 Let two men walk at .their leisure six miles to see 
 two others run a mile match on a burning hot day ; 
 the latter would be probably felt for by many : the 
 feeling would be misplaced, the walkers would 
 suffer most ; the runners, their race over, would be 
 well rubbed, dried, and cooled ; in an hour they 
 would feel light in themselves and spirits, cool and 
 vigorous ; the walkers would feel feverish, dispirited, 
 and jaded for the remainder of the day, and I speak 
 from practical experience. 
 
 Why was not the feeling and sympathy of the 
 fair girl awakened for the posters that brought her ? 
 Simply because she had no conception they suffered 
 in their task ; they had brought her apparently merrily 
 along, she had been accustomed to see the same 
 thing whenever posters were applied to the carriage, 
 and her father's horses only being used for airings, 
 or short journeys at a moderate pace, of course never 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 45 
 
 were distressed ; what, then, was to tell her that the 
 increased pace (postmasters usually direct their boys 
 to go, when employed in the service of persons of 
 the higher order) did create any distress to the 
 horses ? Now had it been proposed to send her 
 favourite riding horse, on any occasion, where he 
 would have been called on to go twelve miles within 
 the hour, under a burning sun, and return in the 
 same time, her sympathy would have been imme- 
 diately awakened, not because one property was 
 another's and the other her own, but because her 
 attention would have been called to the one, but was 
 not to the other. I am quite ready to admit that 
 four post horses, if in fine working condition, might 
 not suffer much in doing twelve miles an hour, very 
 fast though the pace is, and I admit the lady's horse 
 would probably have done so with the same exertion ; 
 all I condemn is, that the generality of persons never 
 take the trouble to consider whether they are the 
 means of causing suffering, or not, or care at all 
 about it if they are. 
 
 Epsom races, though they are patronised by the 
 
46 BIPEDS AKD QUADiUTPEDS. 
 
 highest of our aristocracy, undoubtedly bring within 
 a square half mile a greater mass of the scum of 
 the earth, and a greater amount and amalgamation 
 of all that is low, iniquitous, and despicable, than 
 any other annual event of a sporting nature ; though 
 a true lover of racing, I hate the place, and should 
 any other of 'equal importance within the same dis- 
 tance of the metropolis. I hate it on the ground of 
 ite congregating a greater number of miscreants than 
 any other place, though, in sooth, the railroad now 
 supplies a very liberal sample of such at most 
 meetings. Epsom is notorious as having immolated 
 more horses in their day's work to and from it, than 
 any town in the United Kingdom, or the world ; 
 the way to it is long, the weather usually oppressively 
 hot, and the dust only equalled by that of the desert, 
 under the influence of the simoon ; every wretched 
 cripple that it is thought can be made go the dis- 
 tance, is put in requisition, and, as regards the vehicle 
 it draws, its strongest recommendation is the greatest 
 amount in numbers of merciless animation that it 
 will contain. Because the light barouche of the noblg 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADKUPEDS. 
 
 47 
 
 or gentleman, with four of the best of Newman's 
 posters, go there at a pace distressing to a certain 
 degree even to them, each driver of a wretched hired 
 gig, or owner of some miserable under-sized, over- 
 worked, half-fed animal, tries to go the same, and 
 this I have heard called the " fun of the road ;" 
 fun, yes I should call it fun too, if I could see such 
 owners harnessed each to his own vehicle. It may 
 be said, if a proprietor does not mind causing his 
 own horses to be improperly used or driven, those 
 using them need not trouble themselves about the 
 matter ; this may at first appear as really sound logic, 
 nay, a truism ; it is no such thing, it is bringing for- 
 ward fallacious excuse for, and in defence of, what 
 is indefensible. If the postmaster orders that his 
 horses shall not be spared, what induces him to do 
 so ? cupidity. He holds the pleasing an influential 
 customer, of far greater importance to him than 
 any distress his horses may undergo ; so, according 
 to the logic alluded to, because a man may direct an 
 act of brutality to be committed, another is to hold 
 himself excused in making himself a brute also, by 
 
48 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 sanctioning the act. The true logic to be used in 
 such case is, that it is making two brutes instead of 
 one. Il maj- be objected that my terms used are 
 too forcible for ordinary occasions : perhaps they are, 
 and I hope they will remain so ; 'butif for brutality I 
 substitute the softer words of thoughtlessness, want 
 of judgment, and perchance no little want of feeling, 
 I suspect many must confess to themselves, that 
 what I say comes home. 
 
 Now, in one bearing of the case, I quite agree in 
 the axiom, that there exists no positive necessity for 
 our anxiety about the property of another, if he 
 shews no anxiety about it himself ; nor need we. if 
 the improperly treated property was inanimate. If 
 a man chose to set fire to his post-chaise, why 
 should I trouble myself about the matter r he might, 
 for me, do the same thing every day, if he pleased ; I 
 should laugh at his folly, and wi»rm myself by the 
 fire : but though I should not interfere for the post- 
 chaise, I most certainly should for the ])o?,t- horse, if 
 I saw him injured. I should not interfere for the 
 sake of the man, but for that of the horse and my 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 49 
 
 own feelings. I doubt not any of my readers would 
 shrink with horror from the hardened wretch who 
 averred he could composedly see a limb taken from a 
 beautiful child, and allege, as a reason, that the suffer- 
 ing child belonged to another ; he is little better who 
 could, or would, see pain inflicted on an inoffensive 
 animal, because that was not his own. The dif- 
 ference between the two is only, the first would be 
 (as J. J. Rousseau describes a son unloving, and 
 ungrateful to his mother) a monster who ought to 
 have been strangled at his birth ; the other, one who 
 ought to be despised and execrated by his fellow- 
 men. We cannot suppose it probable that the 
 apathy, even of the latter, could be shewn by 
 women ; should, however, such a case occur, hide 
 her, ye guardians of the fair and good, from the eyes 
 of men, as one deformed in mind, apostate to 
 her sex. 
 
 Since the now fashionable sport of steeple-racing 
 has got so much in vogue, numberless ladies 
 attend such meetings as public scenes of gaiety and 
 amusement ; numbers have, however, mentioned 
 
 E 
 
50 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 such pursuits to me in terms of great reprehension, 
 as being cruel and unjustifiable. I fear, though I 
 have so far participated in such events as to have 
 ridden in them, I must not deny that they do often lead 
 to much, and very severe, cruelty and punishment 
 to animals, whose powers would be better employed 
 in more justifiable pursuits ; be this as it may, 
 coarse must be the mind of him, however keen a 
 sportsman he might be, if he hesitated one moment 
 in deciding which of two females would be the most 
 to be admired — her who might express her admiration 
 of such sport, or the one who awarded to it her un- 
 qualified detestation. Tenderness of feeling, is in 
 woman (as itissaid charity is in man) "twice blessed,"' 
 it is, more than beauty, the sure passport to man's 
 heart ; although quite aware of this, it must not ac- 
 tuate me, or my judgment, in giving a fair and impar- 
 tial opinion as to in what cases animals really suffer 
 They do often suffer most severely, I admit, in steeple 
 chases ; but this does not amount to the fact that 
 such sport is always, and in all cases, a cruel one ; 
 there is no earthly reason that it should be, and 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 51 
 
 when it is made so, it certainly in no way adds to the 
 amusement or gratification of those concerned in, or 
 witnessing it ; quite the reverse, for any one pos- 
 sessing common humanity would turn from such a 
 sight, disgusted at the circumstance, and loathing the 
 perpetrator of it. It is, we all know, very severe 
 exertion for the twelve or fourteen minutes it usually 
 lasts ; but horses in high condition, and properly 
 trained for it, if fairly ridden, do not usually suffer 
 enough to call forth indiscriminate pity. Among 
 other cases, there are two very prominent ones, 
 in either of which the horse unfortunate enough to 
 be engaged, is sure to suffer severely ; the one is, 
 when he is ridden by a gentleman rider knowing 
 little, or perhaps nothing, about what he undertakes ; 
 the other, when some scoundrel, after contriving to 
 get his horse high up in the betting, runs him to lose. 
 In speaking of gentlemen riders, I in no shape mean 
 to include en masse all who ride races under such 
 denomination, for I could mention a great number 
 who can ride as well as the professionals ; when 
 this is the case, we will hope superiority of edaca- 
 
 E 2 
 
52 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 tion " emollit mores nee sinet esse feros;" and I 
 will further hope, that where horses have been as 
 unfairly ridden and as unfeelingly punished as I have 
 often seen them by gentlemen riders, it has pro- 
 ceeded from want of judgment and over-excitement, 
 a very poor excuse, I must admit, when it is done ; 
 still it does not call forth the same unmitigated and 
 23roper censure and disgust, as absolute want of 
 feeling, which, give it its proper appellation, we can 
 call nothingless than sheer brutality. AVhy horses often 
 suffer so much under unpractised gentlemen riders, 
 is this, such persons ride their horse so injudiciously, 
 that he is virtually often beat by the time the race is 
 half over, and when near the end of it has no" more 
 chance of winning it than a dead one ; their want of 
 practice, and consequently judgment, prevents their 
 knowing or feeling when this is the case, and the 
 fear of their riding being criticised induces them to 
 try if steel and whipcord cannot effect what is 
 impossible. I can most truly assure them, that 
 neither or both of these modes of punishment can 
 produce any beneficial effect when the animal 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADKUPEDS. 53 
 
 powers are prostrated, it is as useless as it is absurd, 
 unsportsmanlike, ungentlemanly, and brutal. As I 
 shall have again to mention gentlemen riders, under 
 another head of cruelty, I drop the subject as regards 
 them for the present. 
 
 It would not be to the purpose of the present essay, 
 to mention the thousand and one nefarious acts that 
 are practised in racing matters : ordinary dishonesty 
 is a virtue in comparison with them; my object here 
 is only such as cause suffering to a noble animal. 
 Persons unacquainted with such matters might very 
 naturally suppose that the principal cause of suffering 
 to the race horse, steeple-chaser, or any horse running 
 for money, would be his being unmercifully punished 
 to make, or to endeavour to make him win ; but the 
 direct reverse is often the fact, the most shamefully 
 and brutally punished animal I ever had the un- 
 pleasantry of seeing, was one that it was quite in- 
 tended and indeed decided on should lose. Many 
 might suppose that to lose a race, nothing more 
 would be wanting than to abstain from calling the 
 best powers of the horse into action ; and the in- 
 
54 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 ference would therefore be, that losing a race is a 
 kind of holiday to him, however much it might be 
 a penance day to those who had betted on his win- 
 ning. This little bit of mystery, but great piece of 
 rascality, must be explained. If two individuals 
 choose to have a private race, or match between two 
 horses, if the rider of either found he could not win 
 his race without greatly distressing his horse, and 
 from feelings of kindness preferred losing the stake 
 to punishing the animal, he need resort to no art or 
 cruelty to effect his purpose. But if a mian runs 
 his horse in a public manner, on a public race course, 
 and for a public stake, the case is widely altered ; 
 he will be told he has no right to consult his own 
 feelings, or those of his horse, as the money and 
 interest of persons betting on this, as on other races, 
 is involved in the event personally. I totally deny 
 the validity of such claim on the part of bettors ; 
 but this is not a subject for discussion here, further 
 than to show why and how an expected winner is 
 often punished by " running him to lose." 
 
 It must be borne in mind that owners of race 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 55 
 
 horses, like all other men, have a character, many 
 one of such sort that they would be happy to lose 
 it if they could ; but this is not readily eifected, for 
 it is much more difficult to lose a bad than to gain 
 a good one ; but as they all have a character of some 
 sort, it merges into this : those (and there are some) 
 of high character would not wish that it should be 
 tainted, the thousands who have a very bad one do 
 not wish it made worse, and the very pretty sprinkling 
 who have only the character of being capable of any 
 rascally act or acts that are disgraceful to man, are 
 forced to keep up some show of fair dealing, know- 
 ing as they well do, that every act is watched and 
 suspected. Jockeys have, if they are high in their 
 profession, a great deal of character at stake, for if 
 a man is making a thousand a year by his riding, a 
 few hundreds will not tempt him to materially sully 
 his character, either on the score of his ability or 
 honesty ; as a pound, shilling, and pence matter he 
 would refuse to do so, under ordinary temptation ; 
 the trainer has also character at stake, so when he 
 does wrong, he must mask it with considerable tact ; 
 
56 EIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 and I must pay the two latter the compliment of 
 saying, that speaking of them generally I would 
 quite as soon trust to their words and honour, as I 
 would to that of the great majority of their employers, 
 even noble as some of them are ; for I know, and 
 many know, nobility will on occasion show little 
 (nay, great) tricky arts in turf matters, and such 
 things have occurred, at no remote period, of a Noble- 
 man'shorse being "pulled," as well as others belonging 
 to commoners. A very heavy bettor once said, "if he 
 could only lose his own character and borrow a good 
 one, for one race meeting of importance, he would 
 in that meeting make his fortune ;" thus it appears 
 that character is to be turned to advantage in turf 
 affairs; this being the case, appearances must be kept 
 up, and there are many cases where (when a horse 
 is running with others), if all those who were known 
 to be nearly or quite equal to him in qualifications 
 to him were scratched, that is withdrawn, it would 
 be the greatest puzzle that could happen to his owner ; 
 for to lose a race against a field that it was well 
 known a particular horse could beat in a canter, 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 57 
 
 would be too glaring, and if he wins, what becomes 
 of the bets his owner has by his agents made against 
 him ? winning would gain him a few hundreds in 
 stakes, but lose a fortune in bets. He could not ask 
 such a man as Jem Robinson, or others of high 
 standing, to risk his character to lose on such an 
 occasion, nor is it so often as many persons suppose 
 that jockeys are the persons to whom blame is to be 
 attached when a race is lost. It is quite certain 
 that a race cannot, under ordinary circumstances, be 
 lost by a horse that is superior to the others he is to 
 run with ; to bring this about, the agency of trainer, 
 or jockey, or both, must be resorted to. If it is 
 known that the merits of two or three horses in the 
 race are very nearly balanced, the jockey can cer- 
 tainly lose it, if he pleases to do so, without injury 
 to his character with the public ; but it is not always 
 quite safe to trust to this, for something may occur 
 to make him alter his intention: if he does, ruin to the 
 owner is probably the consequence ; so, where losing is 
 to be the game, the surest thing is not to trust to the 
 Jockey's promise of making a scoundrel of himself. 
 
58 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 Now where it is quite expected that a horse from 
 his superiority must win, no man would trust to a 
 jockey's promise to lose ; so the horse would be 
 so treated as to render him so inferior to others 
 in the race, that the jockey may try as long as 
 he pleases, but unless some most extraordinary 
 circumstance arises, he cannot win. Most persons 
 have heard of the terms of " hocussing " horses, or 
 " making them safe ;'* in whatever way they night 
 " made safe," the effect is the same — they lose. It 
 may be thought by some that the making a horse 
 safe, comprehends some practice of cruelty ; it does 
 so as to its results, but not as to the usual mode re- 
 sorted to to make him so ; it merely consists in so 
 dosing him as to put him in the same state of pros- 
 tration of powers of exertion, lassitude, and de- 
 pression of spirits, and vigour, that a man is seen 
 in who has been inebriated to a great excess the pre- 
 ceding day. 
 
 A man thus circumstanced would most certainly 
 not feel disposed to run a race, and if he did, he 
 would have little chance of winning; it : he would 
 
BIPEDS ATsD QL^ADRUPEDS. 59 
 
 not undergo actual pain, or great suffering to do so, 
 nor does the horse ; but where the parallel of the 
 two cases ceases is in this ; — the man runs, cannot 
 win, and he undergoes no punishment further than 
 his exertion ; but, in the other case, appearances 
 must be kept up, the jockey must shew that he 
 makes every exertion to wdn, for on a known supe- 
 rior horse, if, on finding he had no chance, he pulled 
 up, it would be said he purposely lost the race. 
 There can be little doubt but if he had ridden the 
 horse before, or been accustomed to see him go, that 
 on giving him his canter before the race he might 
 detect what had been done as well as if he had been 
 told it was so ; but he dare not publicly state this, 
 or even privately assert what he could not prove ; 
 so he rides the horse, and, to avoid the censure of 
 the public, the unfortunate animal is severely 
 punished to save the character of a rascally owner, 
 and a jockey who depends on his own for his bread. 
 It ipay be asked, why I do not also say rascally 
 trainer r for this reason, the trainer would not, in 
 ordinary cases, dare to dose a horse under his care 
 
60 T3IPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 without the sanction of the master ; so where the 
 rascality originates, there let the greatest and most 
 deserved reprobation rest ; this shews why a horse 
 that is run to lose is all but certain to be grossly 
 abused. There have been other means resorted to, 
 to prevent a horse winning, that really are painful to 
 the animal, and consequently brutal on the part of 
 the perpetrator ; but these are rare, from the 
 liability of producing permanent or, at least, length- 
 ened injury : let it be done as it may, whenever we 
 see a superior horse beaten by inferior ones, and see 
 him severely punished, in nineteen cases in twenty 
 we should be justified in passing an opinion that 
 such a result began by rascality, and ended in 
 brutality ; and I have no hesitation in saying, that 
 the owner who orders such to be put in practice, 
 be he who he may, ought not to be tolerated in 
 civilised society. If an owner merely desires his 
 horse to be pulled^ (that is, not allowed to win,) let 
 him excuse himself to those interested as he best 
 can ; with such a case I have nothing to do here, it 
 is no brutality to the animal ; and, sooth to say, most 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 61 
 
 likely the majority of those who might suffer in a 
 pecuniary way are of a class who deserve no pity, let 
 them suffer what they will. If a man was to say 
 to his jockey, " If you can win your race without 
 abusing your horse, do, but I will not have him 
 butchered and cut up for double the stakes ;" such 
 a man would be abused by the whole betting frater- 
 nity ; his conduct would be called unjustifiable, 
 unsportsmanlike, and un gentlemanly. My indi- 
 vidual opinion of such a man matters little, but I 
 hope I am right in my surmise, that such an order 
 would raise him in the opinion of every right- 
 thinking persDn who knew it was so given. 
 
 We will now, for the present, quit the subject of 
 racing of either kind, and take up that of the chase ; 
 I have heard this designated, by persons of anti- 
 sporting habits, as cruel. 
 
 Whoever wishes his reasoning, or opinion, on any 
 subject to produce any attention or effect, should be 
 careful not to let his personal predilections for, or 
 against, such subject influence the opinions he may 
 promulgate upon it, for the moment it is perceived 
 
62 ETPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 prejudice influences, all confidence in what he 
 asserts ceases. It would be absurd to maintain that 
 there is no cruelty in hunting, it is equally absurd to 
 suppose that those patronising it must be cruel ; it 
 may be said it is cruel to turn out a stag and run him 
 till his animal powers are exhausted ; no man of 
 common sense, of candour, and truth, can deny that, 
 to a certain extent, it is so ; but when we take into 
 consideration that a hunting deer is kept all the year 
 in positive luxury, has as much liberty as is neces- 
 sary to his health, has the choicest of food provided 
 for him, without his having the trouble of seeking it, 
 that he is comfortably sheltered from inclemency of 
 weather, and lives free from danger for three hun- 
 dred and sixty days of the year, — it is not certainly 
 taxing him very heavily, to make him exert himself 
 five or six times during a hunting season. It may be 
 further averred, that it is cruel to confine him ; some 
 deprivation he undergoes in this respect, no doubt, 
 and the theory and imagery of his roaming over his 
 native wilds in all the proud consciousness of 
 freedom, sounds well, and is very well, during that 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 63 
 
 part of the year when food courts his fastidious 
 appetite, and genial atmosphere renders his exis- 
 tence one of enjoyment without alloy ; but when the 
 piercing cold and inhospitable frosts of winter cause 
 his shining and dappled sides to change to rusty 
 brown, and the scanty blade has to be searched for 
 far and wide, when snows almost hide his favourite 
 heather, and the dried unsavoury blade cannot be 
 reached until his foot has scraped aside its frozen 
 covering ; — then the comfortable paddock, warm 
 shed, and nourishing food, would not be a bad 
 exchange for the snow-clad mountain. 
 
 We hunt foxes, and the advocates of such sport, 
 if any aspersion is cast on their favourite pursuit, 
 bring forward as a plea that the fox is a noxious 
 animal ; now this is sheer sophistry. As an enthu- 
 siastic foxhunter myself, I should really hold it 
 beneath such character to bring forward so futile 
 and unnecessary an excuse ; no man hunts a fox 
 because he is noxious ; let him, like an honest fellow, 
 say he hunts him because his chase is a more en- 
 livening and enthusiastic one than any other in our 
 
64 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 country, and the rogue is, on an average, a fair 
 match for the pack ; when hunted he has a chance 
 for his life, and a very good one — the murderous gun 
 would give him far less. If the hypercritic or hyper- 
 moralist says we have no right to kill a fox at all, 
 it is too knotty a point forme to discuss ; at all events, 
 till the truth of such hypothesis is proved to me, 
 though I am advocating the cause of the quadruped, 
 I shall always fill a bumper whenever foxhunting is 
 the toast. 
 
 " Surely" (it may be said) " you can bring forward 
 no excuse for torturing the timid and inoffensive 
 hare." 
 
 Nosv, if it was proved we are not to kill a fox, it 
 most certainly would place fox-hunting in a position 
 it never before stood or, with submission, I believe 
 ever will stand ; so if any one can prove we must 
 not eat hare, it would place hare-hunting in the 
 same jeopardy ; but it has not been proved, so we will 
 look to such weeping accusation againsthare-hunting. 
 Torturing is a term that grates on the feelings of 
 every one, who has any about him ; but in what 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 65 
 
 does this torturing consist ? Most persons sit down 
 very composedly, and some with a good deal of 
 avidity, to table when they see a hare on a dish in- 
 stead of " her form," and if told it is a hunted hare, 
 as she is reckoned more tender than a shot one, I 
 have never, to my recollection, seen any one refuse a 
 slice of the back, for that reason. It is clear, therefore, 
 or at least more than probable, that as hares have 
 been killed, killed they still will be, so long as there 
 exist persons to eat them ; the only matter in hand 
 is the mode of killing, for those persons who call 
 hunting torturing them, and I have often heard it thus 
 defined. I will suppose a case : 
 
 A traveller falls in with a horde of Indians, is held 
 prisoner, but is told that if, after afair start is given him, 
 he can escape his pursuers,by speed, endurance of long 
 running, or any artifice he can use, he may do so ; or he 
 may, as an alternative, take the risk, at a fair distance, 
 of being shot at by a good marksman ; the latter he 
 knows to be nearly certain death. Could it be called 
 torturing, the giving him an equal chance of escape, or 
 being overtaken? Now, though never a regular hare- 
 
 F 
 
66 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 hunter, I have seen a good deal of it, and should cer- 
 tainly say, that of any given number of hares startingbe- 
 fore harriers, more than half escape. We now come to 
 the timidity of the hare, which is mentioned as adding 
 to the injustice or cruelty of hunting her. It may be, 
 and is wrong, to alarm unnecessarily a timid person; 
 but where it would be held excusable to put a man 
 to death, I really do not see that his being a coward 
 could be brought forward as a plea in his favour. 
 Then as to the inoffensiveness of the hare, it is quite 
 ideal ; for though inoffensive as far as relates to 
 attack and defence, she is really more mischievous 
 than the fox. He picks up a rabbit or a fowl, 
 occasionally ; she is daily consuming the produce 
 of the farm, and the very best of it. The fox, when 
 he cannot get choicer food, consumes many living 
 things we are glad to have taken away ; the hare eats 
 nothing but that we wish to have abundance of, and 
 in young plantations is a very mischievous animal, 
 notwithstanding her timidity; and further, put her in 
 a hutch, or box, and let a lady attempt to take her 
 out, she would probably find that puss was not quite 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 67 
 
 a pet lamb, but the delicate hand would very likely 
 shew marks in evidence of certain powers of very 
 sore assault. The hare is naturally afraid of the dog, 
 and is, of course, no match for a hound; but put her 
 and a pet spaniel together in a box, or small room, 
 if the love pet began taking liberties, I am not sure 
 but he would be deterred from repeating them, when 
 both were confined. I will venture a hope that what I 
 have said, may in some way tend to soften the charge 
 of cruelty in hunting any wild animal ; and that 
 where, or when, any cruelty is occasioned by it, it 
 is not in the mere act of the chasing, but in the way 
 it is carried out, and that not as regards the animals 
 chased, but those employed in the chasing them. 
 
 Hounds are often treated most cruelly, and pun- 
 ished most unmercifully, and, what is worse, very 
 frequently most unjustly. So far as the actual chas- 
 tisement of them goes, the huntsman is innocent, for 
 he never does, or at least never ought to, flog a hound. 
 This, when called for, is the business of the whips, or, 
 in less technical phrase, the whippers-in. In some 
 particulars we are now more enlightened than we 
 
 P 2 
 
68 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 were a century back, and in kennel discipline among 
 the rest. Very great, indeed odious, cruelty used to be 
 constantly practised in fox-hound kennels — perhaps 
 there are some now where reformation in this respect 
 is wanted ; where it is so, generally speaking, the m.en 
 are not first-rate at their business, for where that is 
 well conducted, such severity is not often wanted. 
 Hounds are like young persons, very difficult to re- 
 claim when past a certain age, but child or puppy 
 is easily made do what is proper, and then propriety be- 
 comes natural to them. It is cruelty to permit either to 
 acquire bad habits, and it becomes positive barbarity 
 and injustice to unmercifully punish, in order to cor- 
 rect that which has become habit, from our ignorance 
 or supineness in not counteracting it at the proper 
 time. The flogging administered sometimes to 
 hounds is really no less than disgraceful to man. I 
 quite allow the provocation is great, where the noisy 
 babbling of some false-tongued sinner distracts the 
 attention of hounds finding, or when his running hare, 
 or haunch, calls the whole pack from their legitimate 
 business ; still it should be remembered it is as 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 69 
 
 natural to the dog to chase hare, or deer, as fox. It 
 is tuition only, that induces him to adhere to any- 
 particular sort of game ; and if a puppy at his walk 
 is exposed to the chance of being hallooed to chase 
 all sorts of things, how can we reconcile it to justice, 
 common sense, or, at least, common humanity, to 
 half cut him to pieces afterwards, to prevent his 
 doing what we have been, at all events, the passive 
 agents in teaching him to do ? This is often a great 
 drawback on whatever other advantages may arise 
 from sending puppies out to walk, which, for the 
 information of those quite uninitiated in hunting mat- 
 ters, I state to be sending them to farmers, inns, and 
 trades-persons, to be kept till old enough to return 
 to kennel to be entered with the pack of hunting- 
 hounds. Few men ought to have greater command 
 of temper than a first whip ; and it is one of the prin- 
 cipal particulars about him, that I should enquire into 
 in engaging one. He is subject to much provocation 
 from refractory hounds, and the discipline and 
 obedience of the pack rests greatly with him. The 
 huntsman has to shew his abilities in huntingr them 
 
70 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 and their game j but this he cannot do with effect, 
 unless they are obedient to his voice and horn, are 
 attentive to a halloo, fly to a cheer, and are at once at- 
 tentive to a rate. If a hound goes far towards spoiling a 
 day's sport byanything he does, it requires great com- 
 mand of temper, and considerable discrimination, 
 to decide on what is ignorance, inadvertency, or 
 excitement, or obstinate and wilful transgression. 
 Men often claim great palliation for an error, alleging 
 over-excitement as the cause, and this cause often 
 produces many errors in the fox-hound : has he not 
 the same right as man to put in the same plea, on 
 the same account? 
 
 I once saw a really disgusting scene of cruelty 
 and bad judgment take place, where I should have 
 expected better things : this under the auspices of the 
 famous Tom Oldaker, formerly huntsman of the Old 
 Berkley fox-hounds. I had called at the kennel at 
 Gerrard's Cross, in my way to cover, intending to 
 go on with the hounds. I heard some hound in the 
 kennel crying most piteously, and heard lash after 
 lash being administered; I went in to see what was 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 71 
 
 the matter, and in hope of putting in a word in favour 
 of the culprit : there was Oldaker and his two whips, 
 with a hound in one of the yards ; each lashed him 
 as he came within reach of him, calling out the 
 name of the dog at each stroke. On my entering, 
 they stopped, and old Tom certainly looked very 
 black, and I thought a little ashamed of what I caught 
 him at ; and well he might : in the first place a hunts- 
 man should be beloved by his hounds, consequently 
 a rate, or smack of his whip in token of his anger, or 
 at most a stroke of it, if he catches a hound in the 
 immediate committal of a fault, is the most he should 
 do. It is true there was but this one unfortunate 
 animal in the yard, but it was only divided from the 
 rest by palisades, so the whole pack were alarmed by 
 what was going forward ; I learned that the fault of 
 the hound was one very common to man, perhaps 
 sometimes even to the inflicters of the brutal act (for it 
 was a brutal flogging) — this was making too free with 
 his tongue. The next fault was, he would, if out of 
 sight, pay no heed to a rate. So the principle they went 
 on was, that by calling out his name, and accompany- 
 
72 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 ing that by the thong, so to awe him on hearing his 
 name called to, that fear should make him shrink away 
 abashed at the word. It might possibly have this effect; 
 but to invade the quiet of the poor animal, when com- 
 mitting no fault, and of course not " knowing for 
 what he was punished, had something abhorrent in 
 it. With his sides, and indeed whole body, bloody 
 in parts, and evidently in great pain, he was taken'out 
 with the pack ; he trotted dejectedly along, instinct- 
 ively following his companions with his stern and 
 head down, and looking a most pitiable object. I 
 watched him closely all day ; he certainly did not 
 offend, but whenever I saw him, either while finding 
 or in chase, he merely went mechanically with the 
 rest, and took no part in the business of the day. I 
 was really interested in the fate of the poor hound, 
 and wormed out the secret some weeks afterwards, 
 that he had been so completely cowed he was 
 good for nothing ; and they would have ended 
 his career by hanging, but I begged he might 
 be given to me. I made him a present, shortly after- 
 wards, to another hunt; he recovered his confidence, 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 73 
 
 and became one of the leading favourites with that 
 pack. 
 
 To shew how careful masters should be, as regards 
 the tempers of men to whom they entrust dumb ani- 
 mals,' I will mention a short anecdote of John 
 Monk, once huntsman to Mr. Hanbury's pack. I 
 was looking at the hounds, when perceiving one 
 lame, Monk examined him to find the cause ; in 
 doing this the dog snapped at him, when, snatching 
 up his whip that lay on the ground, he struck the 
 hound on the head with the hammer end of it ; he 
 dropped as if shot. Monk was stooping with his face 
 directly from me ; the temptation was too great 
 to resist. I gave him a kick that sent him com- 
 pletely heels over head; he got up no little astonished, 
 but, being a good-natured fellow, he admitted I had 
 served him right. The hound was only stunned, 
 and on further examining we found a large black 
 thorn buried in the flesh ; this having been pressed in 
 the examination, I have no doubt produced such 
 intolerable pain, that the animal snapped at the hand 
 with all but involuntary impulse; as a friend of 
 
74 BIPEDS A-ND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 mine once, while undergoing the probing a tender 
 tooth, gave the operator such a blow under the chin 
 as sent him reeling back against the opposite wall. 
 Monk was a good-tempered man, and the hound as 
 well-tempered a dog : they both erred from impulse 
 — the one from pain, the other passion. 
 
 No man would be a greater martinet than myself 
 in the field, if I was master of a pack of hounds. 
 I should be most strict as to the performance of 
 duty as regarded men, horses, and hounds ; but 
 a man may be this, and yet not only be humane, 
 kind, and indulgent, but beloved by all. I 
 hold hunting of all sorts, but, above all, foxhunting, 
 to be most beneficial to the locality where it is 
 carried on ; a healthful, manly, gentlemanly pur- 
 suit, to those engaging in it, and one in the carrying 
 on of which I should spare neither trouble nor 
 money. Still I cannot but feel quite convinced, 
 that on all principle, moral and divine, and in duty 
 to our own conscience, we have no right in doing 
 anything that it is not vitally necessary to do ; to do it, 
 at the expense of suffering to man, horse, or hound ; 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. /5 
 
 nor is such at all necessary, nor does it in any way 
 promote the enjoyment of sport, or add to the effici- 
 ency or character for superiority of a hunting estab- 
 lishment, or indeed of any other. Where it takes 
 place in any unusual degree, it almost universally 
 arises from bad management ; and the permitting it 
 shews the master, or manager, anything but a good 
 sportsman, a good judge of sporting appliances and 
 their management, and, I should say, very little 
 of an estimable man. 
 
 I have heard many shooters affirm that their 
 pursuit was carried on without producing suffering to 
 anything ; and many a lady who would turn away 
 in horror from seeing a fowl's neck broken by her 
 cook, would with great glee commend the shot who 
 brought down the pheasant or partridge. Now 
 which of the two is the pleasanter, to have one's neck 
 broken, or to be riddled with shot, we will not 
 attempt to decide here ; but I have a word or two 
 beyond the actual death to discuss. I allow that a 
 first-rate shot may seldom miss, and v/hen he kills 
 he " kills dead ;" but all shooters are not such 
 shots, and in that case what becomes of the unfor- 
 
76 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS, 
 
 tunate maimed who escape ? Some die a death of 
 pain that lasts for hours, others linger on in a help- 
 less state till death from pain and starvation puts 
 a period to their suffering, happier if a fox or stoat 
 ends them sooner. A sportsman would not, cer- 
 tainly, fire into the middle of a covey ; but, though 
 he singles out his bird, it very frequently happens 
 that stray shot wounds others more or less severely ; 
 and if a shot, I mean a shooter, does not bring his 
 bird down (let him deny it if he can), he feels no little 
 solace from hearing the gamekeeper or bystander say, 
 *' You hit him very hard, sir ;'* and each feather that 
 may fly from the wounded bird, the shooter feels, in 
 figurative term, " a feather in his own cap ;" whereas 
 the merciful, and indeed truly sportsmanlike feeling 
 would be, as he did not bring him down, the assu- 
 rance that he had not touched a feather. By what 
 I have written I in no way intend to convey the idea 
 that shooting is to be termed a cruel sport, all I may 
 say about it is, merely to shew it is not exempt from 
 a shade of it as well as my favourite sports, racing 
 and hunting. " Those who play at bowls must take 
 rubbers," so says the proverb. " There are specks on 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 77 
 
 the sun," so affirms another ; and there are not only 
 specks, but blots in sporting ; we know it, there- 
 fore let us render thena as little objectionable as 
 possible. 
 
 But there is often cruelty of far deeper dye prac- 
 tised in carrying out shooting, than the killing or 
 wounding birds ; the last is often accidental, and 
 never wished for by the true sportsman ; but there 
 is a very great deal of cruelty often practised on the 
 dogs during their breaking. This business is entrusted 
 to men who, though perhaps very expert in breaking 
 dogs, so as to make them perfect by some means or 
 other, are not very particular as to whether those 
 means are consistent with reason and humanity, or 
 the reverse ; such men do not reason much, and 
 really hold a dog criminal if (we will say) he runs 
 into his game, that is, does not stop and stand, or 
 point, before he disturbs it. Now suppose a dog 
 has unfortunately not a very keen perception of 
 scent ; not winding the covey, of course he goes on 
 ranging in search of one ; up and away they go, the 
 unlucky animal is caught, and most cruelly flogged 
 
78 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 for having unconsciously done wrong, or what is held 
 as wrong. The flogging is injustice and barbarity ; the 
 dog had no intention of ofFending,^consequently (let 
 ignorance and obstinacy say what they may) he 
 had no means of judging of what he was flogged 
 for. No one can be absurd enough to suppose that 
 a pointer points in order to show his master that 
 game is at hand ; from some instinctive impulse, the 
 pointer and setter often stop naturally, on winding 
 game ; the hound, on such occasions, rushes on with 
 greater glee ^and impetus ; each has his mode of 
 getting at his game ; and that to kill and eat it is 
 the animal impulse of both, I conceive admits not of 
 a doubt. It may be said, and truly, that a foxhound 
 only eats a fox when the former is in a state of 
 excitement ; this is doubtless the case, and merely 
 shews that fox is not the game that in a state of 
 nature he would pursue. The foxhound is an arti- 
 ficial animal, we teach him to hunt foxes for our 
 own gratification, and flog him for pursuing such 
 game as nature directs him to kill ; the cause of the 
 pointer stopping on scenting his game, is some 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 79 
 
 impulse for which we cannot account, unless it be 
 something like the following reason. He seeks 
 winged animals; instinct, or trial, has taught him that 
 if he disturbs them they fly beyond his reach, so, I 
 conclude, that he stops, and if left to his own discre- 
 tion, would creep stealthily up to them, till near 
 enough to make a rush, and thus try to catch 
 them before they could get on wing. 
 
 It may be said, in refutation of my surmise, that 
 the spaniel hunts for winged animals also, and does 
 not stop. ^He certainly does not : whether this arises 
 from want of sense, if I may use the word, or from 
 our habituating him to hunt, and putup flying game, 
 I am not prepared to say : most puppies will pursue 
 flying birds ; but if they do, they usually leave ofl'such 
 unprofitable habits as they gain experience, — unless, 
 as in the case of spaniels, we permit them to notice 
 a bird on the wing. I should, therefore, say the 
 rabbit or young leveret was probably the natural 
 game of the spaniel ; the pheasant, woodcock, and 
 snipe game he pursues, or at least hunts for from 
 tuition. 
 
80 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 If stopping is natural to the pointer and setter, 
 which, more or less, it is, we may fairly infer that 
 when he does not stop, he has not scented game, 
 and such, no doubt, is in most cases the fact. It is, 
 therefore, no more j ustifiable to punish him for this, 
 than to punish a deaf man because he does not hear 
 sounds perceptible to other persons. That unmer- 
 ciful flogging may in time cause a dog to run into 
 game less frequently than he might at first do, I 
 admit ; but it is a very severe, nay, cruel remedy for 
 a defect in nature : it cannot, of course, make his 
 nose more keen ; its only effect can be this — from 
 being always severely beaten whenever he does run 
 into birds, he becomes so truly alarmed lest he should 
 do so, that he ranges more leisurely, and, in fact, does 
 his business in fear and trembling. It would be far 
 better, and more merciful, to give such an animal to 
 some one wanting a sharp yard dog, which many 
 pointers are : a really valuable dog he never can 
 become — he has not the physical requisites for one ; 
 if he is fast, and makes use of his speed in ranging, 
 he will certainly run into birds, and if he hunts care- 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 81 
 
 fully enough to remedy the defect of obtuseness of 
 smell, he is but an indifferent pottering apology for 
 a pointer. I have known men who have had a kind 
 of diaboHc pleasure in taking a dog in hand, tha 
 another with some feelings of humanity has given 
 up as incorrigible, and if by positive barbarity they 
 have cured him of his failings, have gloried in their 
 achievement. Save us from contact with such 
 wretched specimens of our kind ; such a man must 
 be a brute in nature, and most probably a coward at 
 heart, if put to real test. I admit that having a 
 day's sport spoiled is annoying in no small degree, 
 but the loss of amusement is no justification for cruelty 
 or undue severity. One great mistake, or indeed 
 arrogant opinion, I might justly call it, that people 
 indulge in, is, that whatever contributes to or forms 
 their pleasures are absolute matters of paramount 
 importance ; thus many a man would hold himself 
 justified on half flogging a dog to death, because he 
 had been the means of preventing a partridge being 
 shot, I quite deny the axiom ; there is no necessity 
 for a partridge being shot to show ofi" a man's good 
 
 G 
 
82 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 shooting ; it is a sport, an amusement, and that only, 
 and, as I before said, has no unjustifiable cruelty in its 
 indulgence. It produces great excitement to those 
 who are enthusiastic about it; but we have no right to 
 be cruel, to indulge in excitement, or enthusiasm, or 
 both combined ; the mere amusement of man is not 
 to be indulged in at the expense of good and proper 
 feeling, though his arrogance induces him to think 
 that the comfort, well-doing, or even the life of 
 dumb animals ought to be sacrificed, if necessary, to 
 promote his pleasure. 
 
 Probably a nobleman, or gentleman, who tries for 
 the first time a pointer he has brought up, and which 
 has been broken by his keeper, is delighted with the 
 dog, and, as probably, knows nothing of the severity 
 the unfortunate beast has undergone, to bring him 
 to be perfectly steady, to " back," bring his game if 
 wished, not to "break field," to " down-charge," and 
 other perfections that render a pointer valuable. 
 
 It has been stated, and, true or not, is accredited 
 by many, that the miserable dancing bears that 
 used to disgrace our streets were taught to do this. 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 83 
 
 by being placed on hot iron, or some kind of hot 
 flooring. Most persons held in just abhorrence the 
 perpetration of such cruelty, and equally properly 
 deprecated the putting a poor brute to pain, to force 
 him to do what nature never taught him to perform ; 
 and in further reprehension of such cruelty, alleged 
 there could be no use in such grotesque exhibition, 
 as it could only amuse the very low. I will suppose 
 a reader and a brother sportsman to have been 
 anathematising the bear-leading fraternity, in which 
 heart and soul I join him ; but enthusiastic as we 
 may both be as sporting men, let us be also as just 
 as our judgment enables us to be ih our deductions 
 and conclusions, and also calm and dispassionate in 
 our reasoning. It certainly is not a natural act of 
 the bear to dance, if a dance it could be called, and 
 it is barbarous to punish him to make him do it ; 
 but we are not to suppose if what has been men- 
 tioned was the method employed to make the bear 
 dance, that he was put on red hot iron, or iron hot 
 enough to injure his feet materially, but must infer 
 it was just hot enough to prevent his standing still ; 
 
84 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 hot enough, no doubt, it was to make the lesson a 
 disgusting piece of barbarity; but, after all, probably 
 he did not suffer a bit more than the pointer often 
 does under a savage-tempered gamekeeper : and let 
 me tell the shot that a great deal of what he de- 
 mands of his pointer is as little natural to him as 
 dancing is to a bear, and consequently it is just as 
 arbitrary to demand an act contrary to habit of one 
 animal, as it is in the case of the other. It may 
 very properly be said, no possible public advantage 
 can accrue from a bear's dancing ; no absolute public 
 good arises from partridges being shot, for the 
 markets could be plentifully supplied with them by 
 other means. Shooting is a gentlemanly amuse- 
 ment it may be argued, and a bear's dance is not ; 
 granted, but a thing being gentlemanly only, in no 
 way warrants improper cruelty to an animal, a bit 
 more than if the pursuit was even vulgar. Now 
 what would the bear leader say ? I should conceive 
 it would be something to the following effect : " I 
 have used cruelty to make my bear dance, I allow 
 it, but then his dancing supports me and my family, 
 
BIPEDS A.ND QUADRUPEDS. 85 
 
 does your pointer support yours ? You may say no 
 sensible man nor no gentleman is amused by a bear's 
 dancing. I allow that, but all people are not sensible 
 or gentlemen either ; the lower orders are amused by 
 it, so it answers my purpose and theirs, and the low 
 have as much right to be amused as the high, if 
 their amusement is not attended by more reprehen- 
 sible acts than the others : the truth is, you like 
 shooting, and do not see any amusement in bear 
 dancing. I don't say I am right in being cruel to 
 make my beast dance, but I am not more wrong 
 than you, in encouraging cruelty to make your dog 
 back:' 
 
 It is natural to the pointer to hunt, consequently 
 so soon as one or a brace of birds have been shot, 
 it is as natural for him to start off in search of more ; 
 but it is not natural for him to " down charge," yet 
 he is flogged till he does do so ; the animal, from fear 
 and habit, gets to do this, but of course from no 
 other motive ; he would think it just as sensible a 
 demand to be required to stand on his hind legs, or 
 turn heels over head till his master had reloaded. 
 
86 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 The pointer's natural incentive to hunt for game no 
 doubt is to eat it, and if he sees another stop and 
 point he knows the other winds game ; his natural 
 impulse would be to get up to him to share in 
 the spoil, not to stand still to let him get the 
 lion's, or whole share. Flogging makes him back 
 steadily, that is flogging if he does not do so, and, 
 in truth, pointers get plenty of this discipline, and 
 that often in a most unmerciful way ; and as if that 
 was not enough, there are other devices more cruel 
 still. I have heard of a slight but strong and very 
 long cord being tied to the tenderest part of the 
 animal's anatomy, and if he did not immediately 
 attend to the keeper's command, who held the end of 
 it, the poor brute got a snatch that pulled him head 
 over heels ; if this is not a diabolical invention and 
 cruelty, I know not what is. 
 
 If doing all that is required of a pointer was 
 natural to him, he would of course do it naturally, but 
 as he does not, there is no use in denying the plain 
 fact — that the dog is more or less cruelly treated as 
 he may be more or less timid, obedient, or sensible, 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 87 
 
 to make him do that which is not natural to him, 
 solely and simply to conduce to the avarice of a 
 keeper, or the amusement and vanity of his master. 
 It is a beautiful sight, I allow, to see a brace or two 
 of highly-disciplined pointers go through all the 
 niceties of their business; but it is a sight that seldom 
 is, or has been seen, without a very great amount of 
 suffering being inflicted ; and as it mostly is the case 
 where any animals are placed under the hands of 
 men of coarse and low minds, what ought to be 
 done by patience and contrivance, is done by un- 
 warrantable, frequently unjust, and quite as often 
 ignorant severity, and where such severity answers 
 no purpose, from its cause not being within the range 
 of the instinct of the animal. Ignorance of how 
 far instinct serves the dumb animal, is one of the 
 leading causes of much useless suffering to them. 
 Where blind ignorance exists, the animal is not given 
 credit for half the sense, and, if I may be allowed 
 the expression, half the mental attributes he has, 
 while on other points it is expected that he should 
 be capable of what would amount to reasoning 
 
88 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 faculty. I will mention a supposed case, in some 
 elucidation of what I mean. We will say that a dog 
 wildly ranging in quest of game is not only unmind- 
 ful of the voice or whistle of his master, or keeper, 
 but ranges on, and finally " breaks field," that is, 
 jumps a gate or fence and gets into a second field, 
 while the sportsman is in the first. He is caught as 
 soon as circumstances allow it to be done : this is 
 probably effected by being coaxed, cajoled, and en- 
 couraged to come to his master's side : the return for 
 this obedience is an unmerciful flogging ; his name; 
 Dan, Don, Shot, or whatever it may be, being loudly 
 vociferated in his ear, as each lash falls on his body ; 
 instinct, or as much of reasoning power as we must 
 give him credit for possessing, would induce him to 
 suppose that as his last act was coming to his master 
 he was flogged for that, and it would really require 
 combination of ideas and reflective powers to enable 
 him inwardly to say — " I recollect that half an hour 
 ago I did not stop when called to, but I am sure it was 
 not for that;" for even supposing he did know that he 
 was expected to obey the call, the soothing and en- 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADKUPEDS. 89 
 
 couraging voice used after the committal of the offence,, 
 would make it appear that he had since the fault been 
 high in favour. It would be rather too much to expect 
 him to reason and say, " Yes, but the hypocrisy was 
 only used to get me into the hands of him using it." 
 Now we will suppose that after having been most 
 unmercifully beaten, the dog does stop the next time 
 his name is hallooed out. A man, the calibre of whose 
 mind might enable him to think once but not twice, 
 would say, " You see he knew well enough what I 
 thrashed him for." Now the real fact would be, the 
 poor brute knew nothing at all about the matter J 
 but the reason he did stop is this : before being so 
 direfuUy punished and frightened, the excitement of 
 hunting engaged his attention more than the call of 
 the sportsman ; but after being punished, and hearing 
 his name dictatorially and angrily shouted, the next 
 time he hears it in the same tone and voice, it so 
 appals him that it diverts his attention from what 
 he is about, and he comes to the call the same as he 
 would on ordinary occasions, when not rendered 
 heedless by excitement. A brutal mind would in- 
 
90 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 duce a man to say, "I don't care what the act maybe, 
 if it produces what I want :" upon such a man reason- 
 ing would be thrown away, he is a brute sinning 
 willingly, with his eyes open, and against all feeling 
 that should actuate man ; he is a far more despicable 
 brute than the unfortunate one committed to his 
 care, who only sins from ignorance, natural animal 
 excitement, and consequent heedlessness. 
 
 " Is a dog then to be allowed to run wildly 
 where he pleases, instead of being corrected for it ?'' 
 exclaims some ardent shot, or perhaps ignorant 
 keeper. Certainly not ; he is to be taught not to do 
 this, but he is not to be allowed to do it, and then be 
 half flayed alive because he has done it ; most dogs 
 will be obedient while within a certain distance 
 from us, more or less, according to the impulse of 
 the animal, but many will disobey command when 
 fancying themselves beyond our control. We must, 
 therefore, take care such a dog does not get beyond 
 the limit in whicli we know he will be attentive, till 
 he can by degrees be trusted further and further 
 from us ; this, I admit, may be a work of more time 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADKUPEDS. 91 
 
 and trouble than a savage succession of floggings ; 
 but I can only say, I would much rather my dog 
 should give a keeper or myself trouble, than the 
 keeper should give the dog the punishment such 
 men usually do. I have seen a good many dogs 
 and a good many keepers in my time, and this much 
 I am warranted in saying — I have seen numberless 
 sporting dogs very obedient to keepers, but scarcely 
 ever saw one evincing that cheerful attachment to 
 them that dogs usually do to other persons. And 
 now to coursing. 
 
 Somerville describes coursers as " the mean, mur- 
 derous, coursing crew." Why he should designate 
 them as mean I cannot see ; murderous they certainly 
 are, so is the hunter, so is the shot ; for though 
 " Killing no Murder " makes a most laughable farce, 
 whether we style it murder or not ; if we kill, it 
 becomes a very serious tragedy to the party under" 
 going it. I suppose our poet held it unjustifiable 
 to kill a hare by any means but hunting her. I 
 have never been a coursing man, so am not likely 
 to speak partially of it or its effects ; but candour 
 
92 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 must induce me to say, that so far from meriting the 
 stigma of murderous, I really must think, as a sport, 
 it involves less suffering to animals than any other I 
 have ever joined in. As regards the hare, I should 
 say that, in ordinary countries and situations, as 
 many hares beat greyhounds as harriers ; it is true 
 the former is beyond all comparison the fleetest 
 animal, but then he has only one sense to trust to 
 sight ; out of sight the hare is as safe as if a hundred 
 miles from the dog, so the want of nose is to be set 
 against his superior speed. It is true, with him, 
 five minutes or less settles the business — the hare 
 is killed or escapes ; if, therefore, murder or killing 
 of any sort is to be done, " 'twere well 'twere 
 done quickly." Now, as regards the animals used 
 in coursing : I conceive that there is no description 
 of sporting dog subject to so little correction as the 
 greyhound ; he is not one of much sagacity, and, 
 fortunately for him, little of it is required in his use ; 
 he has a strong spice of cunning about him, and 
 when this is shewn to any extent he becomes worth- 
 less, unless it be to catch a hare for the table ; and, 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 93 
 
 very luckily for him, when he has faults they are of 
 such a nature that no correction can make him com- 
 prehend them, consequently it is quite useless to 
 apply it. 
 
 Horses, when used in coursing, certainly do get 
 a most trying gallop ; but it is short, and amounts 
 merely to the distress of a man running a mile 
 against time ; a few minutes recover their wind, and 
 then they are as fresh as ever. I must, therefore, 
 differ from even such high authority as Somerviile, 
 as regards accusing coursers of meanness or being 
 murderous, though in predilection for other sports 
 I quite agree with him, for I certainly should never 
 occupy the time in coursing I should devote to 
 hunting. 
 
 Fishing, denominated the " gentle craft," admits 
 of two opinions ; if we are to believe the worm 
 writhes upon the hook, it certainly is most barbarous, 
 for impaling a living animal to cause it to contribute 
 to our amusement would be an act disgraceful to 
 humanity ; but I by no means consider it as certain 
 that the worm does suffer at all in comparison with 
 
94 BIPEDS AND UUADEUPEDS. 
 
 what might be supposed. I judge on this principle : 
 if we were to thrust a pike through the body and 
 out at the head of man, horse, dog, or mouse, 
 instant death would occur ; it is not so with the 
 worm, for pass the hook through him and gently 
 draw it out over the shank, he would live, and I 
 suspect his dying on the hook arises more from 
 being kept under water than from the injury of the 
 steel. It is a pretty, a poetic, and humane idea, that 
 the smallest atom " feels a pang as great as when a 
 giant dies." I am not prepared to say but that if a 
 mountain crushed a man to instant death, and the 
 foot of man did the same by a mouse or humming- 
 bird, but that the pang felt by either might be 
 similar ; why death, or rather the being put to 
 death, is usually more serious to the large than the 
 small animal, I conceive to be chiefly arising from 
 our not apportioning the strength of the death- 
 dealing blow to the strength of the vital faculty in 
 the large one ; we use a bullet to destroy an elephant 
 so we do to kill a dog, whereas, to produce equal 
 stunning effect and equally sudden cessation of 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 95 
 
 sensation, a cannon ball should come in contact with 
 the forehead of the elephant. 
 
 Every one, or at least most persons, have heard 
 of the cruel and lengthened sufferings of the poor 
 elephant that was, by a succession of musket balls, 
 at last killed in her den in the menagerie ; now, 
 could it have been done, one twenty pounder from 
 a piece of ordnance would probably have destroyed 
 her as quickly as a bullet does the dog. It is well 
 known, that a thrust with a small dagger scientifi- 
 cally made behind the horns of the bullock will 
 bring him down*, indeed kill him much sooner than 
 the pole-axe in daily use — in fact, the Mahoots can 
 destroy an elephant almost instantaneously by such 
 means ; why it is not used instead of the pole-axe 
 with which sometimes several strokes are given 
 before the beast is stunned, I know not ; most proba- 
 bly because though many like beef, few ever trouble 
 their heads about the most merciful way of killing 
 the ox. 
 
 In fishing, as regards the fish hooked, I really be- 
 lieve that so far from suffering much pain from the 
 
96 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 hook, if it merely catches him by his lips, he feels 
 scarcely any pain worth mentioning, and I go on 
 these simple grounds ; after having been hooked 
 and carrying off hook and part of the line with him, 
 he will often snap up the bait and a hook when offered 
 him in a few minutes after his first escape : it may be 
 said he only sees the bait and not the hook ; we will 
 allow this, but judging by myself, I think if I had 
 had a proportionate hook thrust through my mouth, 
 I should not feel disposed for lunch in a few minutes 
 after the occurrence. 
 
 But to return for a moment to the worm: it is quite 
 true he does twist in all directions when on the hook, 
 but hold him by the head or tail with the finger and 
 thumb, he would twist just the same, so I consider 
 his doing so as efforts to escape, not the writhings 
 of agony. 
 
 It would be most fallacious to attribute the same 
 sensibility of feeling to all animals, but the agony 
 occasioned by intense pain is, no doubt, the same 
 in all, the difference only being, that what occasions 
 acute pain to one, does not to the other ; the stroke 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 97 
 
 of the jockey whip that will raise an ostensible wale 
 on the fine skin of the race-horse, would leave no 
 mark, or probably be little felt, on the thick hide of 
 the ass ; but this in no way proves the last-men- 
 tioned patient and ill-used animal is not as sensible 
 to suffering as the former, if that is done which 
 brings on suffering to either, or rather both. 
 
 I conceive the sensibility to pain depends much 
 on the state of the nervous system ; and without at- 
 tempting or intending to trespass on pathological 
 causes or effects, I conclude the sensibility of that 
 nervous system is influenced a good deal by the state 
 of health and spirits ; in some proof of which, I be- 
 lieve it is fact, that invalids will often undergo a severe 
 operation with less complaint of pain than the per- 
 son in rude health ; so I conceive that a great deal 
 of the insensibility to whip or spur usually ex- 
 hibited by the ass, does not wholly arise from thick- 
 ness of skin, but that from the absence of any thing 
 like generous and stimulating diet from his birth, 
 and this, accompanied by severe drudgery and con- 
 stant brutal usage, brings the nervous system of the 
 
98 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 animal to an all but torpid state. In some proof of my 
 hypothesis, we often see an ass in some of the London 
 costermongers' carts, trotting or cantering along with 
 all the willingness and energy of the horse. That this 
 is not produced by sheer severity or unmerciful flagel- 
 lation alone, is certain, for the usually badly-fed 
 ass would sulk, lie down, or die, before he could be 
 induced to make such exertion ; his spirit is broken, 
 his energy, his constitution weakened, and, under 
 such circumstances, apathy of the whole corporal 
 system, as well as that of the mental, follows. 
 
 Among the most flagrant of the cruelties and 
 abuses that our legislature for a long time permitted 
 to exist, that of allowing dogs to be used as draught 
 animals, was one of the most abominable. The value 
 of the horse, if it is only five pounds, is some check 
 on the inhumanity of the inhuman; that of the 
 ass also ; for though a sovereign is about the average 
 price of an ordinary one, it is not so with those 
 we frequently see used in London. I ofi"ered a man 
 five pounds for one for a lady's little carriage, and 
 increa.sed my offer to six, and it was refused ; but 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 99 
 
 he went as freely as a pony, and much faster than 
 many of them. There was, however, a singularity 
 about this animal and harness not often met with — 
 the man drove him with a curb bit, and assured me 
 he pulled very unpleasantly with a snaffle. I could 
 not help smiling at the idea of a donkey wanting & 
 curb ; but I saw, on his being set going, that it really 
 was the case. I did not think half-a-crown badly be- 
 stowed on a man who kept his animal in such vigour 
 and spirits. 
 
 The unhappy dogs used in carts, had little pro- 
 tection from their value ; half of them were stolen, 
 and the others probably bought for a shilling or two. 
 I have heard it asked, in defence of the practice, 
 why dogs should not labour for their living as well 
 as other animals ? The answer is easy : all that ought 
 to live do give an equivalent for their support ; the 
 sporting "dog works hard during the season for his ; 
 the guardian of our premises, if he keeps a vigilant 
 eye and ear to the protection of our lives and pro- 
 perty, very far more than earns his ; and such as are 
 kept as pets for their beauty, are not often of a class 
 
 H 2 
 
100 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 possessing strength enough for labour. There are 
 certainly some dogs possessing none of these attri- 
 butes and perfections : we will dispose of such as 
 quickly here as they ought to bedisposedof, when and 
 where found. Such worthless animals ought never to 
 be born, and if born, should be put out of the way 
 while puppies. Some ultra advocate for equality, and 
 the rights of all classes, may say the cottager has as 
 great a right to keep his cur, as the squire his hound : 
 no man can deny the truth of such aphorism in its 
 broad acceptation ; and, indeed, if the cur guards or 
 keeps watch for his master, cur though he be, he is 
 useful, and he even earns his keep. The lawbeing now 
 against dogs being used in draught, has in the minds 
 of some thrown merit on the heads of legislators, on 
 the score of humanity to the brute creation : of such 
 commendation in this case they do not deserve a par- 
 ticle, nor much, indeed, in anyother,asto laws to effec- 
 tually protect dumb animals. The dog-cart nuisance, 
 as it was called, was put a stop to, not from any ideas 
 of humanity to the dumb animals, but to the talking 
 ones: it was thought that the work conduced to hydro- 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 101 
 
 phobia; and most certainly the dog-carts frightened 
 horses on the road. Had these two objections never been 
 made, the dogs might have worked on till doomsday 
 before their cause would have been taken up; and even 
 when the question of stopping the nuisance was dis- 
 cussed, more than one member defended it ; we will 
 hope, whoever they were that did so, that it arose from 
 a cause, corroborative proof of the truth of what I 
 have asserted, namely, that many animals suffer much 
 from people being ignorant of how and where they 
 do suffer. 
 
 I perceive I have frequently made use of the word 
 ignorance in the foregoing sheets, and I feel some 
 apology necessary for having done so ; I in no w^ay 
 meanit offensively, but asa short term, to express want 
 of practical knowledgeof particular causes and effects. 
 
 There are few, if any, services to which animals 
 are applied, in which they suffer more from the want 
 of knowledge of those using them, than they do in 
 ordinary draught ; it is quite true, that if, by bad con- 
 struction of carriages, or the bad application of har- 
 ness, we only enable an animal to draw (say) eighteen 
 
102 BIPEDS ANB QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 hundred instead of twenty-five, the loss of the seven 
 hundred falls on the owner ; and the animal is only 
 on a par in point of exertion with the other, who 
 draws the twenty-five ; but if, under such disadvan_ 
 tages, we force the animal to draw the twenty-five, 
 then it is manifest the loss, or rather suffering, falls 
 upon the horse, and most cruelly do draught animals 
 suffer from such causes. Some persons may not be 
 aware that the trifling neglect of a pair of wheels 
 being comparatively dry, or well oiled, will cause 
 twenty miles to take far more out of a horse, than 
 would forty in the latter case ; yet wheels absolutely 
 screaming from dryness, are often seen and heard 
 attached to carts and waggons, and thus would the 
 ignorant beast in human form let them scream till 
 he had finished his journey's end, or his day's work, 
 though his horses were drawing from such cause at 
 least one ton in four of resistance more than they would 
 by the defect being attended to. Horses suffer most 
 severely from ill-fitting collars: if too small, they press 
 on the wind-pipe, producing a sensation of half stran- 
 gulation ; and here, in proof of this, I will mention a 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 103 
 
 short anecdote, not redounding greatly to the credit 
 of my precaution or foresight. 
 
 During a visit to a friend, I had a deal with him in 
 the horse way ; he took a fancy to a nearly thorough- 
 bred horse I had driven to his house in my dog-cart ; 
 we made an exchange, I taking, in part of payment, 
 a monstrous animal, he had by him ; big he was, as 
 an ordinary dray horse, yet a fast trotter. On leaving 
 the house I inadvertently did not take the trouble of 
 investigating how my harness fitted this Goliah. 
 About a mile on the road, there was a steep and very 
 sandy hill ; about half way up it the great Elephant 
 gave a stagger, and down he rolled on his side ; I 
 guessed he was choked, and on looking at the collar 
 I found it was fully three inches too short for him ; 
 my knife applied to its top soon altered that ; and, 
 letting down the hames, he trotted home gaily his 
 twenty five miles : now, had he not fell, possibly I 
 should have driven the poor beast home half stran- 
 gled all the distance. 
 
 The opposite to this is, collars being too long, or 
 wide, for the neck ; in such cases they are certain to 
 
104 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 gall most grievously; and here should any one, not con- 
 versant with such matters, find his horse's shoulders 
 or neck wrung, and be'toldthatif the collar is smaller 
 it will not go over the animal's head, I apprise 
 him that such may very probably be fact ; but the 
 remedy is easy ; such a horse must be worked in what 
 is termed an " open collar," that is, one open at its 
 apex , and to be kept together by a buckle and strap. 
 If any one not attending to the keeping his horse's 
 shoulders sound, will put a sharp bit of gravel in 
 his shoe and walk twenty miles, he will then be a 
 competent judge of what a horse suffers worked with 
 sore shoulders. 
 
 At one time I had above fifty stage-coach horses 
 to attend to. On taking to them, at least every 
 third horse had very badly cut neck or shoulders ; 
 by a little attention to their collars, in two months 
 there was scarcely a touched shoulder among the 
 whole stock. Neglect in this particular is quite in- 
 excusable ; for though ignorance does away with the 
 charge of intentional cruelty, people should take care 
 i(iot to be ignorant in matters that concern the com- 
 
BIPEDS A.ND QUADRITPEDS. 105 
 
 fort, or its reverse, the suffering, of any living thing 
 under their control. 
 
 One might naturally suppose that a man who had 
 driven a cart all his life, would know in what way 
 his horses worked with the most comfort and ad- 
 vantage ; and no doubt, however obtuse might be his 
 faculty of mind, he would get to know this, if he 
 ever troubled his head about the matter ; but he 
 does not. As one proof of the utter and enduring ig- 
 noranceof such men, and the inattention and careless- 
 ness of their masters, it is no uncommon thing to see 
 a very ^a// horse put between the shafts of a cart, and a 
 low one before him; the consequence is, the latter 
 creates an absolute load to be borne on the back of 
 the shaft horse, and, of course, the more vigorously 
 the leader draws, the greater the weight he pulls on 
 the back of his companion. We will call the nearly 
 
 horizontal line a the shaft of the cart, the perpendicular 
 one b the shaft-horse's back-band, and the declinino- 
 one c the front horse's trace; the pressure on the back 
 
106 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 of the hind horse becomes apparent to any one. To 
 be really an efficacious aiBistant, the traces of the 
 leading horse should draw sufficiently horizontally to 
 produce no pressure at all on the shaft horse's back. It 
 may be asked how this is to be remedied? There are 
 two ways, either of which will of course do it : put 
 a lower horse behind, or a higher one in front. 
 But it may be said, the owner has but these two 
 animals, so he cannot make a proper change; we 
 will endeavour to help him out of his dilemma. The 
 shaftsof a cart with a tall horse in them, always elevate 
 from the hinder part of them to the point, and of course 
 the taller'the animal the greater will be the elevation : 
 unless the back -band is linked conveniently long, add 
 four or five feet of chain to the leading horse's traces. 
 The different effect of this I can shew in three drawn 
 lines like the former, but with an additional one to 
 
 shew the difference: the lower line a shews the trace 
 lengthened, by a small bit of chain, &, say twelve inches 
 long, going to the shaft, to support the additional 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 10/ 
 
 lengthening of the trace : c shows the original draught of 
 the trace. The alteration i» simple enough for a child 
 to make, in fact, as a temporary measure, any bit 
 of strong rope would do as a lengthening; but simple 
 as this is, yet hundreds would daily work horses for 
 years under such disadvantage as I have shewn. I 
 have pointed out this very circumstance to many 
 carters, and indeed owners : the ordinary reply has 
 been, "They've always worked so," or, "It don't mat- 
 ter." It certainly does not matter to the two-legged 
 animal, who drives the four-footed ones ; but it mat- 
 ters greatly to them, and indeed to their masters, if 
 they gave it proper consideration. For if any labour 
 is undertaken by man or beast, if he does it under dis- 
 advantage, one or more, or all of the following results 
 must accrue : either the work will be badly done, a con- 
 siderable amount of useless time will be expended in 
 performing it, or a great and unnecessary expenditure 
 of animal labour will be used in doing it. In either 
 case loss occurs ; if it takes place in either of the two 
 first circumstances, the effect is seen at once, if in the 
 last, possibly it is not seen at the time ; but nature 
 
108 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 will assert her rights, and if the animal powers she 
 has given are unduly taxed, time will shew they have 
 been so. If, from bad management of any sort, three 
 days' work are made to comprise the labour of four, 
 a breaking up of constitution, infirmity of wind or 
 limb, or both, and premature old age, will tell the 
 tale of the abuse of animal power. Unfortunately 
 for the animal, the havoc made is usually too gradual 
 to awaken the attention of the careless or unfeeling ; 
 but the day of reckoning must come, and it will then 
 be seen that over-taxed exertion will tell on the 
 suffering living machine, as much as increased use will 
 on the wheel of the inanimate machine he draws. 
 
 Many persons are by no means aware of the vast 
 increase of animal labour caused by ill-constructed 
 vehicles of any sort. It holds good with the large 
 road waggon, the brewer's dray, the stage coach, 
 and the gentleman's vehicle, in nearly an equal 
 degree. In each, balance, leverage, and absence of 
 unnecessary friction, render them fitted, or the 
 reverse, to their destined purpose ; it is true, we 
 neither want ease to the passenger, nor adaptation to 
 velocity of motion in the cart or dray, but it is 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 109 
 
 wanted to carry its ton or two of load, with the 
 least possible exertion to the animals drawing such 
 a weight; and if, on the other hand, in lighter 
 carriages we do not want that perfection, we want 
 another, namely, facility of draught in fast work. 
 On facility of draught in carriages, mainly depends the 
 well-doing or annihilation of the draught horse ; 
 and whether he walks three miles an hour, drawing 
 twenty-five hundreds, or trots fifteen, drawing three, 
 each in his different way performs his labour with 
 more or less difficulty, in accordance with the advan- 
 tage or disadvantage under which he does it. 
 
 Touse a technical term, the "following well" of car- 
 riages was, perhaps, of even greater importance many 
 years back, than it is since M'Adam literally " came 
 to the rescue " of horses ; for bad indeed must be 
 the vehicle that, on our present roads, does not follow 
 well, that is on level ground, but in hilly countries 
 the difference between carriages is still very great. * 
 
 One of the parts of a carriage which calls for the 
 minutest inspection and attention, is its axles; we may 
 figuratively call them the vitality of motion in vehicles. 
 
 There are now so many persons who can make 
 
IJO BIPEDS AND QUADRIJ^PEDS. 
 
 first-rate axles, that it would be invidious to particu- 
 larize ; but, undoubtedly, to Messrs. Collinge we are 
 indebted for the first that approached perfection. A 
 word or two on their axles, and others on their princi- 
 ple, may, I trust, be allowable here. In these the arm, 
 box, caps, nuts, and screws, fit to a hair's breadth, 
 consequently no rattle or, in more technical term 
 " chattering " is heard ; they run nearly as true as 
 anything in mechanism can do, and the smallest 
 particle of oil is sufficient to prevent friction ; such 
 are the only axles fit for London use. It may be 
 asked, then why not for country use ? this requires 
 a little explanation. In these days we seldom get 
 into a place, in Great Britain, where we are not 
 within a few miles of some town in which some 
 intelligent workmen are not to be found ; formerly 
 this was not the case, and then we should have found 
 that such superior axles as Collinge's were not to be 
 trusted in common blacksmith's or wheelwright's 
 hands ; but why they are so peculiarly adapted to 
 London use is, their perfect steadiness and firm- 
 ness ; the roughest pavement produces no noise from 
 them, which is not the case with ordinary ones. 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADPvTJPEDS. Ill 
 
 For country use, if a man wishes to avoid all 
 trouble or attention in a trip of a month's duration^ 
 let him by all means use Collinge's axles ; but I am 
 not quite certain but in cross country roads, where a 
 little play of the wheel on its axis is desirable, but 
 that the plain axle is th« best ; but then it must not 
 be an ordinary made one, but one turned so truly, 
 and so well polished, that a microscope could scarcely 
 detect the slightest deviation from perfect truth in 
 its formation, the box of course fitting with equal 
 trueness ; such an axle, with proper washers, and 
 well oiled, I should say, on the whole, would run 
 freer than even Collinge's : but then they require 
 constant attention, as to keeping them well supplied 
 with oil or the best of grease. I may be wrong, but 
 for a match cart I should take such an axle in pre- 
 ference to one of Collinge's ; a kid glove may fit too 
 closely to the skin to feel perfectly easy in its use : I 
 am not satisfied but a wheel, or rather axle, its caps, 
 and box, may do the same, though my idea may 
 possibly be incorrect. A person may say, " I know 
 nothing about axles, so it would be of no use my 
 
112 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 looking to my own ;" possibly not, but a coach- 
 maker's man does ; so if, before starting on a trip, 
 you have your wheels examined, and do the same 
 thing at proper intervals during your journey, it 
 may cost a very few shillings, but, depend on it, you 
 save much more in the wear and tear of your horse 
 or horses, independent of the satisfaction of not 
 causing them perfectly useless exertion. 
 
 It is the same by collars, on which I have made 
 some remarks : an owner may not know whether a 
 collar fits or not, but a collar-maker does, so there 
 is no excuse for cutting a poor brute's neck or 
 shoulders, from ignorance in collars. If a lady 
 deputed some one to see if her carriage horses' 
 shoulders were galled or not, and was told they 
 were, she would, in nine cases in ten, act with 
 perfect justice in dismissing her coachman ; and if 
 she was told that anything about her carriage or 
 harness acted disadvantageously to her horses, I 
 should say dismiss him at once ; he is either careless, 
 has no regard for his horses, or knows little of his 
 business. 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 113 
 
 Another circumstance, often arising from want of 
 knowledge, or combination of ideas, respecting the 
 treatment of horses, is a cause of frequent most 
 cruel suffering to them — this is the keeping them too 
 much stinted in their allowance of water. A man, 
 be he master or servant, hears that hunters are kept 
 from water on hunting mornings, or, at least, only 
 get a very small quantity, which is certainly the 
 case, he therefore infers that his horse will perform 
 his journey better from undergoing the same depri- 
 vation : such a man is one of those persons I before 
 alluded to, as thinking once, but not oftener — if he 
 did, he would see the absurdity of holding the two 
 cases similar ones : he forgets that the hunter's work 
 is in a cool, perhaps cold season of the year,'and that 
 a burst of two or perhaps only one hour's duration 
 on a winter's day, is a very different thing to being 
 exposed to a burning sun during a day's journey in 
 July or August. If I contemplated, on a winter's 
 day, or in the cool of early morning of a summer's 
 one, to drive a fast horse a twenty mile stage in 
 something like an hour and a half, I should certainly 
 
 I 
 
114 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 keep him as short of water on that morning as I 
 should the hunter ; but for ordinary harness pace 
 this is quite unnecessary. In fact, if we drive a horse 
 during the hot hours of the day, he should have, 
 water frequently, not in large quantities at a time 
 ^or many reasons ; but certainly, under such exposure 
 to heat, no horse should be driven more than at most 
 a couple of hours without water, and the best way 
 of giving it, so as to make a small quantity refresh 
 him, and slake his thirst, is first to well sponge his 
 nostrils, nose, and lips, gently sponge his eyes also, 
 and then give him a couple of quarts of water in a 
 wooden bowl ; this is better than letting him see a 
 pailful, take a few go downs, and then have a lout 
 of an ostler either hitting him to make him lift his 
 head out of the pail, or by taking it from him, put 
 the thirsty animal in the situation of Tantalus. After 
 giving him one bowlful, which, finding he has 
 emptied, he parts with willingly, let him stand a 
 minute or two ; a mouthful of hay is in such cases 
 of more advantage than most persons may think, and 
 it is so for a reason that probably does not strike 
 them ; it is not given because the animal wants food 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 115 
 
 — if he did, a mouthful or two of hay would be little 
 to the purpose — but chewing brings saliva to the 
 mouth, which exercise in hot weather renders un- 
 pleasantly dry. Having consumed his handful or two 
 of hay, if another bowl of water is given him, his 
 thirst will be as completely slaked as it would have 
 been had he been permitted to swallow, with the 
 greediness of thirst, the best part of a bucketful, 
 the effect of which would probably be chill, and 
 not improbably griping. But hunters are not wholly 
 debarred from water even on hunting mornings, 
 though formerly they were so. When hounds hunted 
 at day break, and a horse had been watered over 
 night, he could do very well with only his mouth 
 being, in stable term, "washed out" in the morning ; 
 but when not expected to exert himself before eleven 
 o'clock, a small quantity at six becomes necessary. 
 Even race horses get a little, early in the morning, on 
 the day of running ; but, as I before said, there is 
 little similarity between the treatment necessary for 
 the hunter and race horse, and that of the one only 
 used for road purposes. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 I have been desired in this essay, if so I may call 
 it, to allude to the cruelty, as it was termed when 
 speaking of it to me, of confining a horse by the 
 bearing rein. It is going a little too far to call it by 
 such name, though formerly, when both bearing and 
 gag rein were used, it very nearly amounted to it. 
 A most absurd practice it was ; it certainly gave show 
 horses, like those used in London carriages, an im- 
 posing appearance; still it was false taste. Heads may 
 be carried too high with horses as well as men, and 
 the d(^ng it produces no good result in either ; with 
 the horse there is a certain place or position of the 
 neck and head, that is in unison with true symmetry, 
 and the same degree of elevation does not accord 
 with the general carriage of every horse ; therefore, 
 without reference to the feelings or annoyance of 
 the animal, we should in some cases defeat our own 
 intentions by putting him to the inconvenience, in- 
 deed pain, of a very tight gag. Others, from dead 
 mouths and want of animation, would, without some 
 restraint in the shape of a bearing rein, bore so 
 much on the driver's arms as to be quite intolerable, 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 117 
 
 and their general carriage would be such as to render 
 them all but worthless where appearance is a con- 
 sideration ; again, a few would lean so heavily upon 
 their collar as to make them work very unhandily ; 
 so in the management of horses, as well as men, 
 we must be guided by circumstances. This is, how- 
 ever, quite certain, no horse that will go at all 
 pleasantly, or as he ought to go, without a bearing 
 rein, should ever, in ordinary situations, be driven 
 with one. 
 
 It would be by no means an unfair conclusion, that 
 the horse or any other animal would naturally carry 
 himself in such way as he found the most convenient 
 and agreeable to himself. We might, however, 
 be led into error by such premises, plausible as they 
 appear. That horse or man, left to their own impulse, 
 may carry themselves in the way that appears to them, 
 or really is, the most convenient to them at the time, 
 is, I dare say, the case, but it by no means follows it 
 is the bestormost advantageous mode for them to use; 
 it is the most so at the time, but it being so (if it is 
 not really the best), arises from their not knowing of 
 
118 BIPEDS AND QUADEUPEDS. 
 
 a better. I will bring forward a case I conceive to 
 be in point. 
 
 We will suppose a man to be fond of walking, yet 
 has a lounging, dwelling, inelastic step, or, on the 
 other hand, steps with the petit pas of a French- 
 woman on some of their roughly-paved streets ; 
 people might say, depend on it he walks in the way 
 most easy to himself. Such idea, natural as it seems, 
 would be a very erroneous conclusion — he only walks 
 with a gait that is the best till he is taught a better : 
 put him under Westhall, Smith, Mayne, Newman, 
 and other professional walkers, they would soon 
 alter his style of carriage and step, and his rate of 
 going also : to his great surprise, he would find they 
 would teach him to cover six miles of ground or 
 more in an hour, with no more exertion than he be- 
 fore used in completing five. What, then, becomes 
 of the idea of a man himself best knowing the most 
 advantageous way in which he can walk, or indeed 
 do anything else ? 
 
 I will instance another case. We find a ploughman 
 Avith a heavy laboured step, we enlist him, send him 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 119, 
 
 to drill: even in a few months he is absolutely trans- 
 muted ; no one would recognise the plodding loon in 
 the smart soldier : he now walks with a firm and 
 graceful step, steps the earth as if the earth be- 
 longed to him, not as if he was a mere part and par- 
 ticle of its clay, half moulded into human form, yet 
 such a few months before he showed : doubtless he 
 found the drill somewhat irksome, but it transformed 
 the mere animated lump of earth into a form, the 
 prototype of the sculptor's study. 
 
 It is pretty much the same with horses, as regards 
 bearing reins. The naturalist might say, look at a 
 horse in his natural state : unless when excited by 
 fear, or some other impulse of equal influence, the 
 position of his head is little more than horizontal 
 with his body, often much lower. Such, no doubt, is 
 the fact, but he learns this from constantly feeding 
 from the ground ; it becomes a habit, and in a state 
 of nature it answers his purpose ; but it by no means 
 proves it would be an advantageous style of carriage, 
 when he is not compelled to pick his food from the 
 ground. To show that it really is only acquired 
 
120 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 from habit, any one who has had opportunity, or 
 has taken the trouble of observing a horse accus- 
 tomed to have his food provided for him, must have 
 seen that if such animal is turned to grass, he makes 
 a very awkward business of getting at the herbage, 
 in fact, stooping is painful to him ; and this shows 
 that making him carry himself handsomely, if he is 
 taught to do so by degrees, and gentle means, shortly 
 becomes as easy and natural to him as going in an 
 unsightly, slovenly manner. It is sophism to bring 
 forward what an animal may do in a state of nature, 
 as a guide for what he is to do when taken from that 
 state ; teaching the horse intended for ordinary pur- 
 poses to do them in a way in which those purposes 
 ought to be performed, is only submitting him to the 
 ordeal of the recruit I have alluded to ; his quantum of 
 inconvenience during it will depend on the patience, 
 good sense, and good temper of his teacher ; it need 
 not be made in any way painful to him, though daily 
 observation and experience oblige us to admit 
 with regret that it is often rendered so in a most 
 unjustifiable degree ; but this does not arise from the 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 121 
 
 cruelty of his being taught, but from the ignorance, 
 want of temper, or brutality of him who teaches. 
 
 We have taken the hint of driving without bearing 
 reins from our continental neighbours ; with them 
 all diligence, post, and cart horses, work without 
 them ; but it must be admitted that these horses go 
 in any form they please, and we often see three 
 horses abreast, one carrying himself like a pig, an- 
 other like a horse, and the third like a giraffe. The 
 indiscriminate abolition of the bearing rein is as 
 absurd as its indiscriminate use^; for a tolerably long 
 experience in driving all sorts of horses, singly, 
 doubly, and four together, quite convinces me, though 
 a decided advocate for not using a bearing rein, when 
 it can be dispensed with, that there are many horses 
 who will work with less fatigue to themselves by 
 being kept a little together by its use, than if allowed 
 to roll along just as they please without one. 
 
 This brings me to the supposed undeniable cruelty 
 of sharp bits. Now, with submission to better au- 
 thority, I venture to deny that the using a sharp bit 
 is cruelty ; their indiscriminate use would be, not 
 
122 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 that the most delicate mouth in a harness horse need 
 be wounded or hurt by one, but their general use 
 would be cruel, because the hands of the generality 
 of men would make them so ; a sharp bit in light 
 hands prevents horses getting into a lounging, dwell- 
 ing step, that fatigues them ; a horse may be allowed 
 to go as much at his ease with a sharp bit in his 
 mouth, as with an easier one ; this depends on the 
 driver. Now this would not hold good as regards 
 the hunter ; he could not do his business if ridden 
 on a bit that would be severe to him, though it may 
 be necessary to have one in his mouth to have re- 
 course to on occasion ; and why a harness horse can 
 go with a severe bit in his mouth (and that the only 
 one), and the hunter cannot, is easily explained. 
 
 The hunter crosses all sorts of countries, (that is, 
 ground,) has to surmount all sorts of obstacles ; from 
 this arises the necessity of his making all sorts of 
 exertion to enable him to do so ; these often require 
 sudden extension of neck and head, which he re- 
 quires to be able to make quicker than the rider can 
 often anticipate : any check in doing this would pre- 
 
BIPEDS AXD QUADRUPEDS. 123 
 
 vent his performing that which produces safety to 
 the rider and himself, would bring him into danger, 
 instead of allowing him to get over it, and not im- 
 probably would also bring him on his nose : the 
 sudden motions of the head and exertions of the 
 body and limbs, that the hunter is compelled to use 
 to go safely, are so frequent and so sudden that the 
 best hands in the world, if they rode a horse on a 
 bit severe to his particular mouth, could not avoid 
 giving him checks that would not only produce 
 danger, but probably fatal results. 
 
 The driver has no such call on his attention, nor 
 has the harness horse occasion for such diversified 
 exertion. With the difference of hill or level, his 
 work and action is uniform ; the driver is on a steady 
 seat, and it is only by having bad hands, that with 
 ever so severe a bit, he need injure his horse's mouth 
 by it. If a driver has such bad hands as many have 
 he is not to be trusted with a severe bit to use ; if he 
 has a bad temper, for humanity sake never let him 
 use one ; for the slightest offence of his horse, even 
 a false step, that the animal could not prevent making, 
 
124 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 would no doubt be followed by a snatch at the bit, 
 that would produce comparative torture, for merely 
 an unavoidable occurrence. In fact, a bad-tempered, 
 passionate man, ought not to be trusted with a horse, 
 any animal, or anything but a halter, which, if he 
 consulted the good of society, he would know where 
 to apply. 
 
 Clipping, I have heard the advocates for " nature's 
 clothing " consider an improper deprivation to the 
 horse. As many horses are used that have undergone 
 this operation, I quite concur with such in opinion, 
 though, under certain circumstances, and when used 
 for certain purposes, it is one of the greatest comforts 
 to the horse that has ever come into use as applied 
 to him ; but like bearing reins, sharp bits, and in- 
 deed every thing, if indiscriminately applied, must in 
 some cases prove highly prejudicial ; and here let me 
 caution owners of horses not to trust too much to 
 the suggestions of those employed in the care of them; 
 these will all, to a man, recommend having horses 
 clipped, and their recommendation of its being done 
 arises solely from its saving them trouble. An owner 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 125 
 
 would therefore do well, if he wishes his horses to 
 do so, to turn in his mind the purpose he wants them 
 for. If as hunters with fox or stag hounds, as steeple- 
 chase horses, or even race horses, if from some ex- 
 traordinary circumstances such horses are long in 
 their coats, clip or singe them (which is often pre- 
 ferable) by all means. If as hacks for fast work, 
 such as those ridden by veterinary surgeons, jockeys, 
 dealers, clip them also. Horses used for the park, or 
 a ride about London, may be clipped — it makes them 
 look neat and fine in their coats ; the same by carriage 
 horses used only for a drive, and then '* home;" I do 
 not hesitate in saying that nearly every stage coach 
 horse should undergo this process ; and in fact, I am 
 quite clear that their thriving, more by far than pays 
 the trifling expense of it. Post horses stand in the 
 same category. But if the use to which horses are 
 put requires their standing about and waiting, ex- 
 posed to cold rain and wind, clipping is death to them; 
 it is then cruelty — for they are comfortless, indeed 
 miserable, till their coat grows again, or the warm 
 weather comes. Horses will not thrive if they are 
 
]26 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 cold. If a lady keeps her carriage horses waiting 
 about for her shopping, or at parties, it is cruel to 
 deprive them of defence against such unfair usage. 
 Her coachman may wish it done, but it would be 
 laying the foundation for all sorts of ailments to 
 permit it, unless the owner makes up her mind to 
 alter her usual practice, one certainly not to be com- 
 mended under any circumstances. Ladies must ex- 
 cuse me if I remark that a predilection for constant 
 and daily shopping lays them open to the suspicion 
 of not possessing minds of a very high order. It 
 may further be supposed that their taste and judg- 
 ment soars no higher than bijouterie or dress ; it 
 may still further be supposed to be a mere mode of 
 killing time, for those whose attainments are not of 
 a character to enable them to pass that time in higher, 
 more praiseworthy, more to be admired, or more 
 elegant pursuits. 
 
 The lady who orders her carriage at two, to take 
 her from a ball, and then keeps it waiting till four 
 o'clock, shews that the fascination of a scene that 
 pleases the eye only, has so firm a hold of a weak 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 127 
 
 mind that she cannot tear herself from its influence ; 
 and keeping servants and horses shivering in the 
 cold, merely to prolong a gratification she may 
 enjoy at any time, evinces a want of consideration 
 for the feelings of others, that places her in anything 
 but the amiable light in which so fair a being as 
 woman should ever be regarded. The frivolous of 
 the other sex may think otherwise : let such herd 
 with kindred minds and think as they please ; 
 woman, with her usual attributes, would be con- 
 taminated by their praise or admiration, and, let us 
 hope, would turn away with contempt from the 
 expression of it. 
 
 In conclusion of clipping : in this, as in many 
 other things in which the welfare and comfort of 
 animals are involved, a want of knowledge of effects 
 often leads to much suffering to them ; and a want of 
 consideration, as to whether they will or will not lead 
 to such, occasions a great deal more. If we are not 
 bound to know, we most certainly are so to consider ; 
 and if we are aware we cannot trust to the correctness 
 of any opinion or decision consideration may lead to, I 
 
128 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 hold it positive!) a moral duty, as well as an act of 
 humanity, not to be neglected, that we get good 
 advice and information as a guide to any decision or 
 act in which humanity is concerned. 
 
 We will now turn our attention to where vanity 
 sometimes occasions suffering, where there is not 
 ignorance to plead in palliation of such effects. 
 
 There are various kinds of vanity, some reprehen- 
 s ible, others puerile, and others, again, highly com 
 mendable ; in the latter cases we usually give it 
 some other appellation — it is, however, virtually, still 
 vanity. Vanity may make, and has made, many a 
 man a hero — it is then termed a love of glory, or a 
 thirst for fame ; thirsting for fame, twist and turn it 
 as you will, is but a wish for vanity to be gratified ; 
 vanity has more claim on our notice, and sometimes 
 commendation, than is usually awarded to it. I am 
 aware that pride and vanity are quite distinct in 
 themselves, though often united in one person ; but 
 to be vain of doing a thing, or to be proud of iu 
 come in very close affinity, though they may, and do 
 convey a different idea of the person feeling them, 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 129 
 
 and also of the act done. Vanity has made many a 
 man go through life with a fair character, whose 
 disposition and principles, but for the vanity of being 
 spoken highly of, would have induced a widely 
 different conduct ; such a man would not feel proud 
 of having acted honourably, because his innate 
 principle does not induce him to really prize such 
 conduct, but his vanity is gratified by being spoken 
 of as a man of honour. If, therefore, vanity can, and 
 certainly does, often produce such efiects, my 
 opinion is some^vhat borne out, that we owe a good 
 deal at times to its influence. 
 
 The vanity of possessing beautiful and valuable 
 animals, is not only harmless but commendable, as 
 encouraging the propagation and rearing of such as 
 are so ; but in the use, or rather abuse, of them 
 there is with some persons an affectation and vanity, 
 that is as much the reverse, as it should be beneath, 
 the feeling of a manly mind and sensible man. 
 
 This affectation I have seen evinced where we 
 should have least expected its exhibition; as it 
 appeared, or was shown, among a class of men 
 
 K 
 
130 BIPEDS AND QUADHTJPEDS. 
 
 not usually addicted to sucli puerile conduct, but 
 the generality of whom would experience a feel- 
 ing of contempt for the exhibitor of it. I have seen 
 it in the hunting field. To feel a certain pride 
 in being the possessor of a stud, be it small or 
 large, of fine horses, those fine performers, and in 
 fine condition, is natural and perfectly allowable ; it 
 shews a man has taste and judgment, at all events, 
 in one of the pursuits he engages in ; but this is 
 widely different from affectation, which I have seen 
 shewn in a manner unpleasing to others, and pro- 
 ducing very unnecessary distress to horses. There 
 can be no doubt but that very superior animals can 
 perform the same task with much greater ease to 
 themselves, and far more to their riders, than infe- 
 rior ones — that is, inferior in the qualifications wanted 
 for such task, be its nature what it may ; that of 
 the hunter is a difficult and arduous one, and he 
 certainly is entitled to all the assistance we can 
 afford him in his performance of it. All hunting 
 men have seen the extraordinary way in which 
 many horses, of quite a second-class character, will 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 131 
 
 carry some men, though with others on their backs 
 they would not probably live half through a chase ; 
 this arises from the exercise of judgment, and proper 
 assistance on the part of the rider. It is true, very 
 superior horses will do without this ; but, if the 
 inferior animal is enabled to perform his part by the 
 aid of such judgment and assistance, it plainly shews 
 that if it w^as afforded to the superior one, he would 
 perform his part with greater ease to himself. " My 
 horses want no help ;" " I would not ride a horse 
 that gave me any trouble ;" or " If a horse cannot 
 take care of himself he won't do for me ;" this is all 
 contemptible affectation and ridiculous bombast. 
 No horse, if of a generous spirit, can, or at least will, 
 take care of himself ; and if he is a slug, he is not 
 fit to carry a gentleman. The refusal of taking a 
 little trouble, to save a good horse distress, evinces, 
 first, puerile, and at the same time domineering, 
 pride and affectation; secondly, pitiable indolence, 
 or the affected assumption of it ; and thirdly, sel- 
 fish feeling and want of humanity ; we laugh at, 
 while we look with contempt on such conduct in the- 
 
 K 2 
 
132 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 very young, but we turn from it with disgust when 
 shewn by the man of maturer years. 
 
 Many a good horse have I seen going with hounds 
 under much distress from the sheer affectation of his 
 master sitting down on his seat, riding with a 
 loose rein, and pretending to take a burst as coolly, 
 and as much at his ease, as a canter up Rotten Row. 
 Many a brother sportsman has seen the same thing, 
 and, I suspect, when they did see it, came to about 
 the same conclusion as myself, that a man assuming 
 such style, instead of (as he wished to do) calling 
 forth the envy or admiration of others, only proved, 
 that if he owned better horses, he also owned weaker 
 brains than most other men out; and further, I 
 never knew such a man generally liked. 
 
 I have, in a prior part of this essay, stated how 
 much disappointment, loss, and mortification, occurs 
 in racing matters from a want of knowledge and 
 practice in them, particularly in the riding part of 
 the business ; and in this part, vanity often produces 
 pretty much the same eflfect. It would seem there 
 is some peculiar charm in putting on a silk jacket, 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADKUPEDS. 133 
 
 for I hardly ever knew a non-professional rider who 
 was not emulous of such display; and though it 
 may be thought that " a saint in silk is twice a saint 
 in lawn," we may conclude that many think " a 
 man in cloth is twice a man in silk." I think i 
 might safely bet odds, that let a man, not much in 
 the habit of riding races, be engaged in one, he will 
 be seen on his hack, with his ordinary coat and 
 waistcoat so arranged as to shew a portion of the 
 silk under it ; this is merely a little . childish, and 
 men more accustomed to such things would only smile 
 at it. Not so harmless, however, are the results of 
 vanity as regards the riding, and, consequently, the 
 horse they ride. There are ladies in the stand, pro- 
 bably friends and acquaintance of the gentleman 
 jockey ; he wishes them to see him take the lead on 
 starting, so take it he will, be it judicious or not. as 
 regards his horse and the race. Should that be 
 " twice round," my life on it, if possible, he will 
 pass the stand first ; this creates a momentary feel- 
 ing in him somewhat bordering on triumph, his fair 
 friends wave their handkerchiefs, and in their inno- 
 
134 BIPEDS AND QUADBUPEDS. 
 
 cence fancy their friend has all but the race in 
 hand ; but, to make success appear still more cer- 
 tain, he is seen still leading when only a few 
 hundred yards from home ; a little further, to his 
 horror and dismay, he hears, and most probably he 
 looks round and sees, a professional stealing on 
 him ; whip and spurs immediately go to work as 
 a matter of course ; seeing this, whatever the pro- 
 fessional or ;?rac?iserf gentleman jock (whichever it 
 may be) might have felt before, he now books the 
 race safe ; a few strides more he brings his horse 
 alongside, gives him a professional shake, and wins 
 as he likes. It is, however, some consolation to our 
 defeated jockey, that the ladies tell him " he rode 
 beautifully, that he had beat them all till the last 
 fifty yards, v^hen that nasty horse and the man in 
 that hideous black jacket and white cap won !" 
 
 In riding a steeple-chase vanity has nearly similar 
 effect, but worse, for it induces the going on with a 
 horse in dire distress, for no other purpose than 
 fancying it less mortifying to be fifth or sixth than 
 quite out of " the ruck ;" the practised rider, and 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 135 
 
 sensible man, if lie finds he cannot be first or second, 
 does not care a whit whether he is fifth or last. In 
 the latter case he walks his horse composedly in ; 
 his personal vanity is not hurt, he is conscious he 
 did all that could be done for, and was proper to do 
 with, his horse ; feels he is known as a good rider, 
 and if he has any vanity it would be more gratified 
 by it being allowed he had ridden a losing race well, 
 than a winning one where it was seen the goodness 
 of his horse had carried him through in spite of bad 
 riding. 
 
 It is quite true that the best of riders will often 
 persevere with a horse they feel to be dead beat ; 
 but when they do, it is usually under something like 
 the following circumstance. The leading horse is, 
 we will say, a couple of hundred yards a-head, the 
 second, best part of a hundred behind him ; to 
 attempt to catch either with a tired horse would of 
 course be the act of an idiot or a madman ; but there 
 being only two a head, and all the rest behind, 
 such are the casualties of steeple-chasing, that the 
 third keeps on (but nursing his horse all the way) ; 
 
136 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 for a fall, going the wrong side a flag, being short 
 of weight, or many other things, might, if such 
 happened to both, give him the race, and if it 
 occurred to one, it would give him second place, by 
 which, in most cases, he would save his stake ; but 
 if four or five were before him, any man of sense 
 would at once pull up when he found his chance 
 was out, for precarious as is steeple- chasing, the 
 odds against mishap to so many would be too great 
 to be contemplated ; a very silly youth might, and 
 would, probably severely distress his horse to get as 
 near as he could, and very likely lay him up 
 for a season by so doing, get laughed at for his 
 folly, and very properly censured for his inhumanity. 
 
 Numerous cases might be brought forward where 
 a foolish vanity often occasions much distress to 
 horses : but the proposed limits of this book will 
 only permit one or two to be stated as samples. 
 
 We often see persons with a poor, weak and tired 
 animal in harness, urging him on to keep pace with 
 that of another, possessed of strength, speed, and 
 high condition ; and such persons seem to think 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRIJPEDS. 137 
 
 that if by an improper and merciless application of the 
 whip, they force the poor brute to keep pace with 
 the superior horse, they have the same credit 
 awarded them for possessing a valuable animal as 
 the man who is taken along cheerfully, willingly, and 
 without apparent effort, on the part of his horse. 
 Contemptible, cruel, and evincing the lowest of all 
 vanity is such proceeding ; constantly as we see it, 
 its only extenuation is, that ignorance (also of the 
 lowest order) is usually combined with it. 
 
 In riding we often see very similar conduct pur- 
 sued : we will suppose a man of moderate weight, 
 say eleven stone, and a good rider, is trotting merrily 
 along on a clever hack, quite up to his weight, at 
 the rate of twelve miles an hour ; some other whose 
 personal weight is fourteen, and perhaps, as bad a 
 rider as the other is a good one ; the latter's emu- 
 lation is excited, and without one thought of the 
 different effect of the difference of weight, and still 
 less of the difference of good and bad hands and 
 seat, he forces his panting over-loaded animal along 
 at the same rate as the other : he exhibits precisely 
 
138 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 the same qualities as the man alluded to, in driving, 
 namely, low and foolish vanity and ignorance, to 
 which may be added, (if not contemplated) at least 
 (wanton) cruelty. 
 
 There is no doubt, but that the present state of 
 our roads has in a general way wonderfully less- 
 ened the labour of horses : but this relief, like that 
 of cheap provisions, may be done away with under 
 certain circumstances. If a man can get good wages 
 as his hire, he benefits greatly. If provisions are 
 half their former price, and he gets two thirds of his 
 former hire, he still greatly benefits ; if he only gets 
 half, he is where he would have been as to his living 
 years ago ; but if he does not get half, he is starving, 
 though he sees plenty around him. The horse is in 
 a somewhat similar position ; if we make the load 
 he draws, or carries, and the pace we urge him to, 
 greater than the improved state of the roads is an 
 equivalent for, he is a sufferer, instead of gainer, by 
 the improvement ; and I fear that among the avari- 
 cious, the ignorant, the vain, thoughtless, and the 
 brutal, this is frequently the case ; for where one 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADKUPEDS. 139 
 
 person thinks of, or appreciates the goodness of roads, 
 from the pleasing gratification of knowing his ani- 
 mal is working with comparative ease, hundreds only- 
 hail the circumstance as enabling them to transport 
 a greater load, and get from one place to another 
 with increased rapidity. Those, therefore, who have 
 any proper consideration for their faithful, willing, but 
 dumb servants, should bear in mind, that there are 
 limits to the advantages of good roads, as regards the 
 exertion of the animal; if these are exceeded by unrea- 
 sonable weight, or pace, such advantage is rendered 
 an infliction, instead of a boon. 
 
 In alluding to the pace, that is, rate of speed, that 
 we may call on an animal to perform, I must occupy 
 a small space explanatory of its nature and effects. 
 There are, I will say, four leading causes of distress, 
 or only fair exertion, to horses, as relates to pace or 
 speed ; the weight he has to draw, or carry ; the 
 pace demanded as regards his capability of speed, 
 his being in a proper or improper state to perform that 
 pace, and the description of ground (that is, its being 
 firm and smooth, or the reverse) over which he goes. 
 
140 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 Having been personally somewhat celebrated (or 
 known, would be a more proper term) as an owner 
 of fast horses in their various ways, the reader need 
 anticipate no censure from me as regards any reason- 
 able fast pace, under proper circumstances, and in 
 proper situations. I will first allude to weight. If a 
 man in a very light and well -constructed gig, with a 
 very fast horse, in high condition, has occasion to go 
 thirteen miles, or a trifle more, and is pressed for 
 time, such a horse, under such advantages and a fine 
 and moderately level road, will perform that distance 
 in the hour without any severe distress ; but if 
 another person in an ordinary phaeton and four pas- 
 sengers attempted the same thing, he would, in nine- 
 teen cases in twenty, fail in doing it, and in each case 
 would be guilty of great cruelty, and produce great 
 distress and suff'ering to his horse. 
 
 If a man has a horse whose action and animal 
 powers make ten miles an hour the top of his trot- 
 ting speed, he will distress him severely by keeping 
 him up to that, though the pace is not in itself an 
 unreasonable one. Distress to the horse must not be 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADEUPEDS. 141 
 
 estimated by the number of miles performed in a 
 given time, but by the natural or acquired speed of 
 the horse performing it ; top speed in any pace, in 
 man or beast, must produce distress, the severity of 
 that depending on the duration of the exertion ; a 
 walk at top speed distresses as much as a run ; for 
 instance, a man, I mean a professional pedestrian, is 
 as much distressed by walking seven miles within 
 the hour as by running ten in the same time ; and 
 many a horse that would gallop eighteen miles vvithin 
 one hour with comparative ease, would be dead tired in 
 trotting twenty in two ; if a bad goer in his trot- 
 ting pace. 
 
 I will now state where mistaken intentional kind- 
 ness would produce a result quite different to the 
 humane wishes of the person shewing such. We 
 will suppose a person to have a horse a fair goer, 
 that is, can do his twelve miles in the hour in a light 
 vehicle ; he wishes to drive eighteen, in a hot day, 
 and kindly determines to drive it as slow as foot can 
 fall ; the consequence is, his horse is kept under a 
 broiling sun, and with the dust hovering about him. 
 
142 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 for three hours ; he comes in half baked, choked with 
 dust, and in a perfect state of lassitude, from the 
 intense heat. Such a horse would perform the jour- 
 ney with less inconvenience, if he did the nine miles 
 in about an hour, had his mouth washed out and 
 cooled, and got the distance over in two, and for 
 these reasons : he would meet a current of air w^hile 
 going ; the other would all along, from the slow pace 
 feel as if standing in a hot bake-house, with no air 
 at all ; increased perspiration, which increased pace, 
 would produce, carries off that internal and external 
 burning heat, that is so distressing, and likely to 
 produce fever to man or beast; a fair pace leaves the 
 dust behind, instead of the animal being choked 
 with it, and heat bearable for tw^o hours becomes all 
 but insupportable in three ; but let the reader bear in 
 mind I premise what I say by supposing him to have 
 a horse to whom nine miles an hour is not a dis- 
 tressing pace ; if he has one to whom it would be, so 
 ungifted an animal must be content to be half baked 
 ere he arrives at his journey's end. Against what 
 I have said, a lady, or a very fat, inactive man, might 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 143 
 
 urge, " If I walk slowly in a hot day I can get on, but 
 if I was to walk four miles in the hour, I should 
 drop;" no doubt such might be the case, and, for the 
 reason I have stated, top speed always distresses, 
 and four miles an hour would be top speed to either. 
 But Westhall the pedestrian, who can walk consider- 
 ably over seven miles in an hour, would much rather 
 walk four miles in that time on a dusty road, and 
 under a hot sun, and get out of both quickly, than he 
 would be compelled to endure both for two hours in 
 performing such distance ; let me hope, therefore, that 
 what I have said may have some influence on some 
 persons, in inducing them to appropriate pace to cir- 
 cumstances, and the capabilities of the animal they 
 use, and not to their own ideas, wishes, or to what 
 they see other persons with other animals perform ; 
 for as regards pace, if we judge from analogy, we 
 must, to do so with propriety, make certain that men, 
 animals, and circumstances, are all analogous as to ca- 
 pability, otherwise no comparison can be justly made. 
 It now becomes my task to take up a most dis- 
 agreeable and repellent theme — to allude to acts and 
 
144 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 feelings, that, where either are exhibited, courtesy to, 
 and respect for, mankind would induce a hope they 
 would only be found] among the very low, the very 
 ignorant, and, in truth, the very despicable ; yet truth 
 obliges us to unwillingly admit, and experience forces 
 on us the conviction that they do sometimes exist, 
 where we might fully hope for better things and better 
 men. 
 
 It was at first proposed that this essay should be 
 made a sort of address to the lower orders, under 
 the hope of awakening in them a better feeling to- 
 wards animals than is evinced by the generality of 
 such persons; after- consideration brought on the con- 
 viction, or at least opinion, that an address on such 
 a subject, in such a quarter, would be nugatory. Of* 
 course this opinion was founded on the conduct and 
 attributes of such persons taking them " en masse," 
 for to their credit be it said, that as much kindly 
 feeling is often entertained in a general way, and 
 also towards animals, by the peasant as the peer, and 
 we might blush in admitting that there is some- 
 times a great deal more ; but I hold lower class to 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 145 
 
 be an improper, though very common epithet, used 
 when speaking of the peasant; or of any man whose 
 conduct is that of a respectable one, and whose 
 feelings are of a commendable character. Such a man 
 is merely one of the poorer class, and it is to be re- 
 gretted that he is so. But in speaking of the lower 
 classes, I allude to those of low and degraded minds 
 and pursuits. Such are the persons by whom animals 
 often most cruelly suffer, and it is to such that, 
 though in a situation to most need reformation, 
 I fear any address on such a subject as humanity 
 would be absolutely useless. Where the peasant 
 or poor man is kind to his fellow- man or to the dumb 
 animal, such conduct is not the result of education 
 or instruction — it proceeds from direct and Heaven- 
 born kindliness of disposition and goodness of heart, 
 and shews far brighter in him than in the more gifted 
 and better informed ; he wants no instruction to be 
 kind, nature has been his best and efficient preceptor 
 on this point ; if he does want any, it is only how and 
 where to be kind, and how and where to avoid an 
 unkindly act. Far more to be envied is such a man 
 
 L 
 
146 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 than the higher born, if wanting such mind and 
 heart attributes that will ensure his being loved and 
 respected here, and, we are taught to hope, rewarded 
 hereafter. To such a man I trust this little essay 
 may be useful; but to make any appeal to feelings, or a 
 sense of propriety, where none exist, would, of course, 
 be worse than useless ; and such it would be to those 
 of whose pursuits and habits I am about to treat. 
 
 There are a certain class of persons in all metro- 
 politan towns, and in most large manufacturing ones, 
 whose amusements (as I conclude they call them) 
 are of a nature that the legislature has, to a certain 
 extent, and in a certain number, rendered contrary 
 to law. 
 
 Formerly, what were termed sports, were of a 
 very different character to what are recognised as such 
 at the present day; bull-baiting was a monstrous, bar- 
 barous, and demoralising pursuit, then permitted in 
 some places by actual charter. Such charter a better 
 feeling and a wiser legislation set at nought, and 
 very properly stopped. Cock-fighting, once patron- 
 ised by the aristocracy, has, to our credit, got in dis- 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 147 
 
 use ; dog-fighting, bear and badger-baiting are now 
 only encouraged by the low and profligate ; from 
 men addicted to such atrocities, nothing is to be 
 hoped from argument, representation, or appeal to 
 feeling ; we must allow them to entertain their own 
 predilections and opinions, and can only oppose 
 stern law to brutal inclination. 
 
 It is true that the Romans, at their time the most 
 advanced of nations, encouraged and patronised 
 brutal exhibitions of various kinds ; but it must be 
 borne in mind that the Romans, the most warlike, 
 and at the same time most effeminate of nations, in 
 their different pursuits, were rude in comparison with 
 nations of the present day ; what would have been 
 termed heroic and praiseworthy in a Roman, cen- 
 turies ago, would be held as brutality, in any in- 
 habitant of a civilised nation of the present period. 
 
 Even the former chiefs of clans in Scotland, though 
 their deeds may form a thrilling theme for the his- 
 torian, were, in truth, in their days half savage, A 
 Duke of Gordon of 1830, was no more resembled 
 by a Gordon of centuries back, than is a man of 
 
148 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 rank and fashion now, by a native Kaffir. As 
 education has progressed, so has refinement in 
 amusements, and to a certain degree, though I fear 
 not to the same extent, has refinement in feeling ; 
 but most certainly it has had its due influence in 
 refinement of taste. 
 
 When men of the higher caste and rank patron- 
 ised barbarous pursuits, there could be no surprise 
 entertained that the lower grades entered with still 
 greater avidity into such amusements, if amusements 
 they could be called. But that any thing Hke inhu- 
 manity to inoffensive and useful animals, should be 
 shown in an age where civilization and education have 
 made such rapid strides as they have among ourselves, 
 must, or ought, to excite " our special wonder." 
 
 It is a natural feeling in man to entertain envy, 
 and consequently something bordering on distrust of, 
 and dislike to, those in a higher position than him- 
 self ; and he feels the same, or at least an equal 
 degree of envy, if he thinks anything below himself 
 is treated with a portion of that consideration he 
 holds as his due. 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 149 
 
 I am quite sure some such feeling actuates the 
 ideas and conduct of certain classes ; a favourite 
 dog, if he has allotted to him as soft, or a softer bed 
 than man has to sleep upon, becomes an object of 
 detestation to the jaundiced eye ; those who are paid 
 to attend on animals, in lieu of being kind to them, 
 a the primary cause of their employ and advantage, 
 feel a degree of jealousy of the animal, because he 
 enjoys, in his way, as much comfort as the man. 
 The fact is, the overweening vanity and domineering 
 spirit of man is such, that not being in a position to 
 lord it over his compeers, the lower orders, having 
 nothing lower in the shape of man to tyrannise over, 
 vent their petty spleen and tyranny on the dumb 
 animal. 
 
 It may seem a strange truth, though it is one, 
 that those who derive their living and comforts from 
 the exertions of animals, usually show the least con- 
 sideration towards them ; but this is readily ac- 
 counted for : they gain, we will say, ten shillings by 
 the fair exertion of the animal ; if, by cruelty and 
 oppression, fifteen are to be made, cruelty and 
 
150 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 oppression are all but certain to be used ; where, on 
 the contrary, a feeling in close affinity with gratitude, 
 and certainly with regard, ought to be the pre- 
 dominating one. 
 
 It was supposed, by those living in former ages, 
 that accustoming men to witness such barbarous 
 sports as were then in vogue, rendered them courage- 
 ous. There could be no more mistaken idea; it might, 
 and no doubt did, render them ferocious and cruel 
 in thought and deed ; but such habits and feelings 
 are quite alien to real courage ; they may, and pro- 
 bably would, make a man a murderer, but most cer- 
 tainly not a hero or a soldier. 
 
 Ever)'' one will, I should suppose, concur in the 
 opinion, that accustoming men to athletic sports, to 
 hardy pursuits, and to such as may be attended with 
 danger, enables them to endure hardship when 
 necessary, and fearlessly look danger in the face. 
 Even a Spanish bull fight may have this one redeem- 
 ing good effect, though it does not absolutely follow* 
 as a matter of course, that because from habit a 
 Matador may face a bull in the arena, that he would 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 151 
 
 with the coolness of true courage face an enemy in 
 the field, for adventurous hazard in peculiar ways is 
 very much the effect of habit. Men being accustomed 
 to face all sorts of wild and ferocious animals, I make 
 no doubt does render them generally courageous, 
 for it accustoms them to face danger without flinch- 
 ing — the fundamental principle of animal courage. 
 The facing danger where duty calls on a man to do 
 so (if he does it, though appalled by its presence), 
 becomes moral courage, perhaps by far the higher 
 order, for the man shewing it may be depended upon 
 in any emergency, for he acts on principle — both 
 combined constitute the true hero. 
 
 But though man facing his fellow-man, renders 
 him courageous in the best possible way, and facing 
 the denizens of the forest produces a similar attri- 
 bute in another ; it would be absurd to suppose that 
 baiting, and torturing one animal with others, or en- 
 couraging conflict, beast with beast, can have any 
 but demoralizing and brutal tendency, and posi- 
 tive effect, in producing such results on the minds 
 and acts of those engaging in such pursuits. If 
 
152 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 courage is produced or increased by habit, there 
 cannot be a shadow of doubt, but a want of feeling, 
 or rather brutal feeling, is by habit strengthened in 
 a far greater ratio ; possibly, indeed probably, the 
 very lowest orders are not born with such feeling 
 predominating, but early and constant habit of join- 
 ing in brutish sports, finally produces it in its fullest 
 force, and no law can be too stringent in their sup- 
 pression. 
 
 Men being brought up with such habits may justly 
 lay claim to some palliation of their ofi'ences, from 
 what I really believe to be fact, namely, they do not 
 consider they are guilty of the cruelty that they most 
 unquestionably are, in the committal of them. But 
 such plea cannot be brought forward by the man 
 whose education must teach him better — for such a 
 man there can be no excuse ; curiosity may lead a 
 person to witness an exhibition of a barbarous de- 
 scription, but if he goes a second time, we can draw 
 but one conclusion from such circumstance — he ad- 
 mires it, and if he does, brutality lurks in his dis- 
 position, however it may be veiled by his other and 
 general habits. 
 
BIFEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 153 
 
 I would no more take a groom, who was addicted 
 to seeing bull baiting and dog fighting, to take charge 
 of my horses, than I would engage the wretched 
 priest, who lately nearly flogged a child to death, as 
 a schoolmaster or tutor to my own, 
 
 I would not suffer a female servant in my house, 
 who disliked dumb animals ; such is a proof I never 
 knew fail, of bad temper and want of kind feeling. 
 There are, on the other hand, persons who pet 
 animals to an excess that is injurious to them, and 
 renders their existence irksome to themselves, an- 
 noying, and sometimes disgusting, to every one but 
 their ill-judging owner ; such conduct, however, has 
 its rise in an amiable feeling, and all we can do is 
 to pity its misdirection ; we love the person, while we 
 deride the practice. 
 
 I have stated that avarice, ignorance, and vanity, 
 each in its separate way, is often productive of much 
 suffering to animals ; for the first there is a shadow 
 of palliation, for it is possible a man may feel some 
 compunction, while he overtasks, or otherwise ill 
 uses his animal ; this doubtless is small, indeed no 
 
154 EIPEDS AND QUADHUPEDS. 
 
 consolation to the latter, and certainly a very trifling, 
 if any plea in favour of the man : still, it proves that 
 all feeling is not lost in him ; and while that is the 
 case, all hope that time, reflection, and persuasion may 
 produce better conduct is not lost either. It is the 
 same as regards the other two causes of the animal's 
 sufferings ; but where they are brought on by an 
 absolute want of feeling, the case is hopeless, and, 
 in most instances, all that can be done is to pre- 
 vent any public exhibition of cruelty, harrowing to 
 the feelings of all but the brutish perpetrator of it, 
 and those in the same degraded class as himself. 
 
 There is an ancient saying, and indeed idea, that 
 every Englishman's house is his castle ; to a certain 
 extent it, perhaps, is so, and the inference drawn 
 no doubt was, that if a man was legally installed in 
 his denominated castle, that no one could dispossess 
 him. He would, however, find that in these times 
 if the site of his boasted castle was wanted for a 
 railroad, his stronghold, if even impregnable to a 
 cannon ball, would be by no means so to an act of 
 Parliament — out he must go, " nolens volens ;" nor 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 155 
 
 would his chagrin or disappointment be taken into 
 consideration in the remuneration awarded him — in 
 fact, nothing but the real and hard value of the 
 property he is forced from ; little would it boot its 
 having been the birth-place of his ancestry, his own, 
 and that of his children, the scene endeared by years 
 of happiness to himself and family ; the iron fiat of the 
 law ruthlessly turns him out to seek a new home, and 
 quit a scene he feels to be a part and parcel of his 
 existence. He is told that private feeling must give 
 way to public good — be it so ; and if it is, why should 
 not private brutality be adequately punished, in defer- 
 ence to public feeling and the animal's welfare ? The 
 only reason to be assigned is this : the dumb animal 
 is in about the same position as the man without 
 wealth, and, consequently, without interest or influ- 
 ence ; therefore his ills are not held to be of impor- 
 tance enough to call for proper punishment to those 
 inflicting them. We are all aware that in this our 
 country, there is the same law to protect or procure 
 the rights of the poor as the rich ; this is our 
 " glorious constitution ;" and glorious it is in princi- 
 
156 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 pie, but the glory of its effect is sometimes a little 
 diminished : verily, it is a great consolation to a 
 man to know there is a law for him if he can get at it, 
 which he cannot unless he has a round sum of 
 money in his pocket to enable him to challenge the 
 glories of the constitution to assert his rights ; though 
 should he transgress, he will find the law will 
 quickly enough reach him, and generously do so 
 without pecuniary advance from him. 
 
 I am quite the reverse of him, whoever he may 
 be, who carps at the great ; on the contrary, though 
 too insignificant to mix in politics, I have been 
 accused of possessing tory ideas and principles, a 
 matter of not the slightest consequence to any living 
 being ; but, if so, this does not blind me to the fact 
 that wealth and influence can always immediately 
 carry the point of right, and whispers say sometimes 
 of even a little, a very little wrong, where the want of 
 it prevents even the first progressive step towards 
 attaining positive right. 
 
 It is so with the dumb animal ; there is a humane 
 law in his favour ; yet it is to be feared, that but 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 157 
 
 for the interference and watchfulness of a society, 
 whose motives reflect the highest honour on its pro- 
 jectors and directors, few persons would trouble them- 
 selves about seeing such law carried into execution. 
 It is true we see a considerable number of names, 
 some of them very high ones, as subscribers to this 
 laudable institution, but humanity blushes at the 
 paucity of the amount of such subscriptions, when 
 thousands would be cheerfully granted to erect a 
 useless statue to commemorate the memory of some 
 one about whom few persons feel interested. Yet 
 the intents and exertions of such society and its 
 employes are so shackled, and its powers of punish- 
 ment so limited, that it is inadequate to effectually 
 prevent or deter a repetition of the crime for which 
 they convict ; and further, this society is only allowed 
 to inflict, in many instances, a tithe part of the punish- 
 ment the offender merits. 
 
 I believe five pounds is the maximum fine to be 
 paid for the most aggravated case of cruelty to any 
 animal not human. The consequence of such miti- 
 gated fine is this ; it makes the offender more cir- 
 
158 BIPEDS AND QTJADRUrEDS. 
 
 cumspect in what he does, more careful not to lay 
 himself open to conviction ; but he will do the same 
 thing or, at all events, be just as inhumane to his 
 animal as he was before ; he will calculate for and 
 against the chances of being detected. If by carry- 
 ing on a system of oppression and cruelty, he finds 
 that the chances are, that on an average he will make 
 more in a given time than the penalty will take 
 from him, he will play the same flagitious game ad 
 infinitum ; but if the fine, by a graduated scale, 
 was made so heavy that, in accordance with the 
 nature of the oiFence, it was far greater in amount 
 than any profit he could expect to make by the abuse 
 of his animals, self-interest (for that alone would 
 have any influence with such a man) would deter 
 him from even risking another conviction. If, for 
 instance, an omnibus or cab owner was convicted of 
 repeated cruelty to his animals, fine him so heavily 
 as to make him seriously feel it, and refuse him a 
 continuance or renewal of his license, either as 
 owner or driver, for if he is a brute he is unfit to be 
 either. It may be said, that being accustomed to 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 159 
 
 such employ he is fit for no otlier. Yes he is — he 
 is quite good enough, and not a bit too good, to 
 draw a truck or watering cart about the streets 
 himself: and a very proper employ for him. It 
 may then be said, his family would, or might, suffer 
 by this ; it is possible they might ; we cannot, in 
 anything, guard against the chance of some indi- 
 vidual suffering. This would not be considered if 
 a man was transported for a trifling theft, though 
 the loss might be quite unfelt and unheeded by the 
 loser. But here the offence is against august man, 
 in the other, far more heinous crime, it is only 
 against a dumb animal ; such a compound of selfish- 
 ness, bigotry, and arrogance is man, and njan frames 
 our laws. 
 
 I had written thus far, when I was favoured by 
 being presented with a copy of Mr. Harrison's essay 
 on " The Evils of Steeple-chasing ;" for which a 
 most deserved prize was awarded that gentleman. 
 His essay is one that reflects as much credit on his 
 heart and feelings as a man, for the sentiments it 
 promulgates, as it evinces his talent as an author, 
 
160 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 and his ideas and education as a gentleman. Far 
 be it from me to assume the office of critic ; if I did, 
 the criticism would only amount to eulogy. I must, 
 however, in the character of a sportsman, venture the 
 surmise that Mr, Harrison's enthusiasm in the pur- 
 port of his essay, and in which, in a general way, I 
 cordially join, carries his reprehension to the extreme 
 point in designating steeple-chasing as a cruel and 
 ^arbarous sport, and the " torturing " of the animal : 
 that it is rendered often both cruel and barbarous, is 
 most true ; that it is often made the source of abso- 
 lute torture to the animal, I reluctantly, but truly, 
 admit. Our author's only somewhat erroneously 
 applied reprehension, I conceive to be this ; he 
 represents the sport to be in itself cruel and bar- 
 barous, whereas it is the owners and riders of the 
 horses that are so. Why I do not implicitly or 
 absolutely admit steeple-chasing to be in itself bar- 
 barous, arises from practical experience, that a high- 
 bred horse up to the weight he has to carry, and in 
 proper training for the feat, can certainly go over 
 four miles of any fair hunting country (if judiciously 
 
BIPEDS AND QIJADIIUPEDS. 161 
 
 ridden) without such distress as to call forth our 
 feelings of commiseration; but I most cordially join 
 in the opinion of Mr. Harrison, that where fences 
 are made purposely of so formidable a character as 
 to call forth powers or judgment that the animal 
 does not possess, should a fatal accident occur, it 
 is virtually unpremeditated murder, arising from the 
 improper conduct of those placing such obstacles in 
 the way. 
 
 His observations on the real owner of some 
 horses being often uncertain, is quite correct ; and I 
 have, in more than one instance, heard directions 
 given to a rider, at which humanity would, and man 
 should, unquestionably blush. 
 
 I feel quite certain it would be beyond the powers 
 of the pen of the ablest writer, to change prevailing 
 opinion in anything, far less to put down any amuse- 
 ment that has taken firm hold of public taste ; 
 any attempt to do so would defeat its own object^ 
 produce decided resistance, and a dogged and de- 
 termined pertinacity to the cause deprecated. The 
 more politic measure is, not to totally deprecate the 
 
 M 
 
162 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 use, but the abuse of what f)ubUc opinion counte- 
 nances. Few men will bear to be told that any thing 
 they choose to do is .flagitious, even admitting that 
 it is so ; but any man of common sense will listen 
 to suggestions that show how that which he is de- 
 termined to do may be done with less suffering 
 to man or beast, and with equal gratification to 
 himself. 
 
 That steeple-chasing is to be carried on without 
 barbarity, and with all its exciting features existing, 
 is beyond doubt, and if so carried on, let it take its 
 turn with other sports ; but if such scenes are to 
 recur as have occurred, the w^orld will, I am sure, 
 quite agree with Mr. Harrison in saying it ought to 
 be abolished altogether. 
 
 The same essay deprecates pigeon shooting. I 
 respect and admire the kindness of feeling in the 
 author that has produced his philippic against it, 
 and if I venture any palliatory remarks, I beg it may 
 not be attributed to any prejudice in its favour or 
 predilection for the sport, for I never shot at a pigeon 
 from a trap in my life. I boast of no superior feel- 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 163 
 
 ing from such circumstance, for I have done pretty 
 much the same thing, namely, at one time I piqued 
 myself no little on my certainty as a shot at 
 swallows — certainly a sport less justifiable than 
 the other ; for if the pigeon was not killed by a shot, 
 probably he would have been by a cook or poulterer ; 
 whereas the swallow, when dead, was useless. Per- 
 haps our author has not seen much .of pigeon shoot- 
 ing, I therefore venture the remark, that few persons 
 attempt trap pigeon shooting who are not first-rate 
 shots, and generally the bird falls stone dead, close 
 to or a few yards from the trap, and I think, when 
 so killed, dies quicker than when their necks are 
 broken. If a bird is severely wounded, yet flies be- 
 yond the proscribed distance, there are usually plenty 
 of persons, with and without guns, on the outside 
 who bring him down, or watch his falling ; and I 
 should say where one pigeon escapes to die a linger- 
 ing death, a very far greater proportion of game un- 
 dergo such catastrophe. I only fear Mr. Harrison's 
 feelings, and consequent remarks, are of too high an 
 order to be appreciated by the generality of those he 
 
164 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 intends to address, and on whom his emblematical 
 allusion to the pigeon, just, and artistically handled 
 as it is, would make little or no impression. Some, 
 nay, many of these, though I should in no way sus- 
 pect them of shooting at Noah himself if alive, I 
 should think it about as probable they might do so, 
 as to decline shooting at a pigeon, because he carried 
 an olive branch to the ark. Any observation on the 
 essay in question must be laudatory, if he who makes 
 it is laudatory also. ^ ' Even its only error reflects 
 honour on its author — it emanates from feelings too 
 good for the times we live in, and the men we live 
 among : in truth, a little over-strained, and by 
 being so, -I fear has a tendency to defeat its laudable 
 object. 
 
 I have made a long digression from my subject, but 
 I feel it needs no apology to my reader; for if it induces 
 him to read Mr. Harrison's essay, I have no doubt 
 he will think I have introduced him to a better 
 writer, and I am sure a better man than I. 
 
 I had, before this digression, made some remarks 
 on the promptness, certainty, and severity, of punish- 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 165 
 
 ment of offences when committed against man, and 
 of the reverse of this when the dumb animal only 
 suffered. 
 
 I do not profess to have such high consideration 
 of, or for, man as many persons entertain. I have, 
 however, shewn quite as much, and rather more 
 consideration for him, speaking generally, than he 
 ever realised to me, however fair the promise ; and 
 I candidly confess that a stranger horse, or dog, in- 
 spires me with more confidence in their intrinsic 
 worth, than does a stranger man. The former, if 
 exhibiting bad qualities of disposition, are apostate 
 to their race and general nature. I draw a widely 
 different inference as regards the usually styled lord 
 of the creation — for, like other lords, he is not always 
 noble. 
 
 The lower orders, as I have before stated, have 
 not usually any great consideration for dumb animals, 
 that is, they seem to hold them as having no claim 
 to any rank in the scale of existence ; and in the 
 event of a man killing his horse by over- working 
 him, or crushing his cart by overloading it, if the 
 
166 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 cart was worth more than the animal, they would 
 hold the latter as the catastrophe the most to be la- 
 mented. Even those who do not ill use animals, re- 
 frain from doing so from interest, or sometimes 
 kindness of disposition ; but they cannot be brought 
 to the idea that dumb animals have the comparative 
 legitimate right to consideration. They seem to hold 
 that man has precisely the same right over his beast 
 as he has over his waggon ; they will in no shape 
 admit that dumb animals have any claim as humbler 
 members of living society ; they are not satisfied 
 with holding man as supreme head of such, and 
 that there is a descending scale from him to the 
 worm, each having his claim on the world's produce, 
 and man's consideration. They do not seem to hold 
 the life of man to be valuable only, if his conduct 
 is valuable, and his loss only to be deplored if it is 
 the loss of a valuable member of society ; but they 
 consider it so because he is man. I must think the 
 loss of a very useful ox, a greater one than that of 
 a perfectly useless man, and a thousand times more 
 so than the loss of a bad one. 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADE.UPEDS. 167 
 
 Thousands consider they would have as much 
 right to cut a dog in two parts, if they could be 
 useful to them, as they would have to sever a deal 
 board ; and thousands would do it : they think the 
 lives of animals are to be sported with at man's plea- 
 sure, and that animation gives no greater claim to 
 be held as an humbler link of beings, than inani- 
 mate things possess. 
 
 I will give an instance of this feeling, by relating a 
 circumstance that took place only a few months since. 
 Walking by a canal, I saw and heard a crowd of 
 persons standing by its side laughing and shouting : 
 on coming up I saw a spaniel in the water, fruitlessly 
 endeavouring from time to time to get up the 
 bricked side of the canal ; not a soul attempted to 
 assist him, but laughed with demoniac glee at the 
 nearly exhausted efforts of the animal to save him- 
 self. It so happened that one of the most promi- 
 nent of those enjoying the sport, as they seemed to 
 consider it, dropped his hat in the water ; to save 
 this, arms were stretched out, sticks used in all 
 directions ; the current produced by the dog's strug- 
 
168 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. . 
 
 gles brought the hat close to him, and both got 
 within a yard of me ; I laid down, got hold of the 
 dog, and lifted him out of the water quite exhausted : 
 away went the hat out of reach. *' Why the h — ," 
 said a cut-throat looking vagabond, " didn't you 
 get out the man's hat, instead of the d — d dog ? " 
 My reply was not, I admit, a very courteous one ; 
 " D — the man's hat ! if you and him were with it, I 
 suspect your loss would not ba to be regretted half 
 as much as the dog's." Of course I was not highly 
 complimented by the rabble. 
 
 I think it quite probable that what I said was 
 very near the truth ; still, had the fellow been in the 
 place of his hat, and as much exhausted as the dog, 
 a feeling of duty would have caused me to help him 
 in preference to the animal. I should not have had 
 my feelings of compassion more awakened by the 
 one case than the other, nor should I have felt half 
 as much for him as for the dog, if I estimated him 
 as his speech to me enabled me to do ; helping him 
 out would be a duty I should have owed to myself, 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 169 
 
 though, possibly, I might not in such a case have 
 rendered any benefit to society. 
 
 I think the anecdote I have mentioned, will serve 
 to illustrate the state of feeling of l^e low as regards 
 animals ; the struggles of a poor brute between life 
 and death was sport to them ; the loss, or probable 
 loss, of a ruffian's hat, awakened their interest and 
 sympathy. 
 
 Where, and while such a state of feeling exists, it 
 must, I think, be seen that any written work, how- 
 ever ably it might be carried out, would be quite 
 unheeded ; I have, therefore, endeavoured to render 
 this essay one to be perused by those in a different 
 and superior position. It is a duty that such persons 
 owe to themselves, to society, and indeed to the 
 Creator of all things, to see that those they employ, 
 and over whom, they have control, use and treat 
 animals with such kindness as is their due ; to give 
 encouragement where it is shewn, and to inflict the 
 severest punishment in their power where the 
 reverse is the case ; it is false mercy to overlook such 
 offence, it is being merciful to the greater brute for 
 
170 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 wanting mercy to the suifering one. Cruelty is one 
 of the few crimes that can scarcely be too heavily 
 punished, and such punishment should never be 
 remitted, for we s^re not only punishing a man for 
 his acts, but may be sure we punish a savage in 
 heart and mind. , 
 
 There are few duties more imperative on parents 
 than that of bringing up their children with a con- 
 tempt for, and detestation of cruelty, and also with 
 a proper consideration of the feelings of everything 
 under, or that will become under their control ; yet 
 this is a duty that, in a general way, is less attended 
 to than most others : every one will have something 
 under his command and control ; to get command is 
 one of the great objects of man's life, so to learn 
 how to command is one of his first duties. Children, 
 or, at all events, boys, should never be allowed 
 dominion over any living thing without being nar- 
 rowly watched ; they are all, more or less, from one 
 cause or other, prone to cruelty and annoying ; they 
 fancy their tyranny over animals elevates their 
 character, by shewing their power. I have often 
 
BIPEDS AND QrADRTJPEDS. l7l 
 
 seen boys, when trusted alone with animals, correct, 
 and indeed ill-treat them, for the mere purpose of 
 shewing power. I have often seen a boy (if there 
 were persons to see him) correct his pony for no 
 fault, but to shew he dare do so ; the permitting this, 
 or allowijig a boy to get into such habit, is most 
 reprehensible ; and he most certainly will do so, if 
 trusted alone with an animal. I will not pay the 
 heads of families so bad a compliment as to sup- 
 pose that the comfort of any dumb animal they may 
 possess is unheeded by them ; but I shall perhaps 
 insure that comfort more, if I can shew that the 
 welfare of their children is involved in it. 
 
 The permitting a boy unwatched control over any 
 animal, being certain to lead to such conduct and 
 tyranny as I have mentioned, is neither more nor less 
 than laying the foundation of a tyrannous, domi- 
 neering propensity ; the habit of sacrificing the 
 feelings of others to his whim or pleasure, and con- 
 sequently to the blunting of proper feeling, and con- 
 sideration for any thing but self. It will teach him 
 to grow into a man abhorred by others, and one 
 
1^2 BIPEDS AND QUADKUPEDS. 
 
 against whom the hand of every fellow man would 
 be raised, whenever opportunity presented itself ; for 
 this fact may be depended on — the boy that is per- 
 mitted to get into the habit of being cruel, unjust, 
 and arbitrary, to his pony or dog, will as a man be 
 just the same to man, where he can or dare be so. 
 
 Those who permit servants to treat their animals 
 with cruelty, severity, or neglect, will very probably 
 call forth the animadversions of others, from the 
 merited or unmerited belief that such conduct takes 
 place with their cognisance and approval, or, at best, 
 by their negligence, or not considering it a matter 
 of sufficient consideration to cause its prevention ; 
 and further (and with some, more to the point), they 
 will in most cases suffer pecuniary loss, by the de- 
 preciation of the value of their animals. 
 
 Those who from want of knowledge of how 
 animals should be treated will suffer in just the same 
 way, and the results of ignorance will be placed to 
 the account of want of feelings of humanity. 
 
 Those who wantonly abuse animals, from such 
 vanity and affectation as I have mentioned, will not 
 
BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 173 
 
 only arouse the indignation of better men, but will 
 call forth that which it is still harder to live under, 
 namely, utter and unmitigated contempt. 
 
 Those whose brutal disposition is shewn by the 
 way in which they treat the unfortunate and wretched 
 animals who get into their hands, are only tolerated 
 by those in the same state of brutality and degra- 
 dation. Let us hope a less limited scale of punish- 
 ment will be granted to those whose man-like and 
 Christian-like feelings and attention are called to 
 the prevention of cruelty to animals : if such should 
 be the case, aided by the watchful eye of that most 
 useful and efficient body of men, the police, who 
 have already done so much in this humane cause, 
 we may indulge in the hope of a radical cure of evils 
 that have long been a disgrace to men. 
 
 The perpetrators of such evils are accessible only 
 to force and law : they are too ignorant, brutish, and 
 contemptible to be addressed, or reasoned with, as 
 men ; but ferocious as they seem, and are, against 
 the weak, the unarmed, or the timid, it will be found 
 that, in nine cases in ten, if the man who brutally 
 
174 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 
 
 treats an unresisting animal comes within the grasp 
 of a man of true courage, and on equal terms, the 
 ruffian will descend to the sneaking suppliant, and 
 show, that brutal as he is in disposition, he is, like 
 the tiger, cruel and ferocious when in power, but 
 once foiled and abashed, at heart a coward. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 J, BILLING, PRINTER AND STEUEOTVPER, VVoUING, SURREt, 
 
SECOND EDITION, Now Ready, Price 5s. 
 
 A TREATISE ON THE PROPER CONDITION 
 FOR ALL HORSES, 
 
 BY HARRY HIEOVER, 
 
 AUTHOR OP " STABLE-TALK AND TABLE-TALK," "THE HUNTING 
 
 FIELD," " THE POCKET AND THE STUD,'' "SPORTING 
 
 FACTS AND SPORTING FANCIES." 
 
 "A work on the condition of horses in general, has long 
 been a desideratum in the sporting world, and most ably has 
 the want been supplied by Harry Hieover. This work should 
 be in the hands of aV owners of horses." — Bell s Life. 
 
 " Harry Hieover, in the work before us, has laid down, in 
 his easy and familiar manner, a number of practical rules for 
 the right management of horses in general ; which every owner 
 of a horse will do well to consult and observe." — Morning 
 Herald. 
 
 " The name of Harry Hieover stands so prominently before 
 the sporting world, that our saying the little publication now 
 issued by him does him no discredit, will, by those Avho know 
 him well, and can appreciate his judgment, be considered a 
 good recommendation of this offspring of his reflections." — 
 Mark Lane Express. 
 
 " The country gentleman who keeps a carriage-horse — the 
 farmer who has a team — the lady who has a palfrey — the 
 sportsman who follows the hounds — the livery.stable keeper 
 — will one and all save in pocket by purchasing this cleverest 
 of all Harry Hieover's useful books." — New York Sjwrting 
 Eevieiv. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 
 SPORTING FACTS AND SPORTING 
 FANCIES. 
 
 In 1 vol. demy 8vo. 
 
 LONDON : 
 T. C. N E \V B Y, PUBLISHER, 
 20, WELBECK STREET. 
 1853. 
 
In Two Vols, Plates. 
 
 BROOKLANDS: A SPORTING BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 BY MAJOR HERBERT BYNG HALL. 
 
 " Major Hall is now an established writer on rural scenes 
 and sports. He is an ardent lover of them, and he describes 
 them with charming minuteness and passionate eloquence. 
 We recommend the volumes to the immediate attention of our 
 readers ; they will find sterling amusement in them." — Bell's 
 Life. 
 
 " The Author has got the great secret for this kind of book, 
 of being thoroughly at home himself in every scene he gives 
 you. His Squire Western picture is as true a one as any we 
 have seen for many a long day, and is none the worse for the 
 evident admiration and sympathy the author has with his 
 subject." — Sporting Magazine. 
 
 ** To Sportsmen a brace of eminently attractive volumes." 
 — Naval and Military Gazette. 
 
 " Most agreeable volumes, full of Sporting Anecdotes." — 
 Illustrated News. 
 
 "Mr. Herbert Byng Hall has considerable talent for the 
 kind of writing required in a sporting book ; his scenes are 
 lively, exciting, and interesting." — Sunday Times. 
 
 " There is abundance of anecdote and considerable humour, 
 and it will be found a most agreeable narrative." — Western 
 Times. 
 
 In 1 vol. foolscap %vo. 
 
 SLAVERY AT HOME, 
 
 BY A WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 LONDON: 
 T. C. NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 
 
 30, WELBECK STREET. 
 1853. 
 
Wsbster Family Libran; of Vetennary Mediom 
 
 Climming8 Schoo; -'^'etennary Medicine at 
 
 ' uu: uiiivc-sity 
 
 200 V\/estboro Road 
 
 North '^ ifton MA 01536