id
themselves of attacking flies. The unfortunate foal is unable to take
its natural nourishment in peace, and consequently does not thrive so
well as does the offspring of an unmutilated mother. One of the feeble
arguments set forth in favour of docking is, that it prevents a hunter
from soiling the coat of his rider by his tail; but, as my husband truly
says in his new edition of _Veterinary Notes for Horse Owners_, "This
idea is an absurdity, because an undocked horse cannot reach his rider
with his tail, if it is banged short, which is a fact known to all
military men. Besides, mud on a hunting coat is 'clean dirt.'" The
actual pain caused by the operation is trivial as compared with the
life-long misery to which tailless horses are subjected, for we deprive
them for ever of their caudal appendage, and the ridiculous stump
sticking up where the tail ought to be, is as ungraceful as it is
indecent, especially in the case of mares. Our friend, the late Dr.
George Fleming, says in _The Wanton Mutilation of Animals_, "nothing can
be more painful and disgusting to the real horseman and admirer of this
most symmetrically formed and graceful animal than the existence of this
most detestable and torturing fashion; and those who perform the
operation or sanction it are not humane, nor are they horsemen, but
rather are they horse-maimers and promoters of the worst form of cruelty
to animals. Let anyone go to Rotten Row during the season, and satisfy
himself as to the extent to which the fashion prevails, and the
repulsive appearance which otherwise beautiful horses present. The
astonishing and most saddening feature of the equestrian promenade is
the presence of ladies riding mares which are almost tailless. Surely a
plea might be entered here for the use of a fig-leaf to clothe the
nude." I feel sure that if my sex had a voice in the matter, this
wholesale mutilation of mares would soon cease. Dr. Fleming, writing in
the _Nineteenth Century_ over twenty years ago, said: "I hope and
believe that when the horse-loving public and the friends of animals
begin to realise how cruel and degrading some of these mutilations are,
they will not be long in having them suppressed"; but the horse-lovers
do not appear to have done much in this matter so far. This writer tells
us that "the ancient Welsh laws protected it" (the horse's tail) "from
harm at the hands of man," and that "an ecclesiastical canon was issued
in order to prevent it f