od, not drink, which forms the large carcase. Food
takes long to digest, but it is astonishing how quickly what the horse
drinks is absorbed. The late Mr. Field having a horse condemned to die,
kept him two days without water, gave him two buckets, and killed him
five minutes after. There was not a drop of water in his stomach.

[Sidenote: The horse should stand loose.]

A horse should have a loose standing if possible; if he must be tied in
a stall it should be flat. A horse cannot stand up hill without muscular
exertion, and the toe constantly up, and the heel constantly down,
induces ruinous distress to the back sinews.

[Sidenote: No galloping on hard ground.]

[Sidenote: He who cripples the horse kills him.]

Do not let your groom gallop your hunter on the hard ground in autumn;
and my last word shall be a petition on this subject to master as well
as man--to deprecate a piece of inhumanity practised, indeed, as much by
ladies as by gentlemen--the riding the horse fast on hard ground. I pray
them to consider that horses do not die of old age, but that they are
killed because they become crippled, and that he who cripples them is
guilty of their death, not he who pulls the trigger. The practice is as
unhorsemanlike as it is inhuman. It is true that money will replace the
poor slaves as you use them up, and if occasion requires it they must,
alas! be used up. But in my opinion, nothing but a case of life and
death can justify the deed. If the ground is hard and even, a collected
canter may be allowed; but if hard and uneven, a moderate trot at most.
One hour's gallop on such ground would do the soundest horse
irremediable mischief. Those who boast of having gone such a distance in
such a time, on the ground supposed, show ignorance or inhumanity. Such
feats require cruelty only, not courage. Nay, they are performed most
commonly by the very horsemen who are too cowardly or too unskilful to
dare to trust their horse with his foot on the elastic turf, or to stand
with him the chances of the hunting-field. And such is the inconsistency
of human nature, that they are performed by persons who would shudder at
the sight of the bleeding flank of the race-horse, or who would lay down
with disgust, and some expression of maudlin, morbid humanity, the truly
interesting narrative of that most intrepid and enduring of all
gallopers, Sir Francis Head. But compare the cases. In the case of the
race-horse, his skin is wounded t