THE FARM.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4307, 30 December 1892, Page 3

THE FARM.

Horses Suffer in silence, It is a pity that horses suffer mutely, says a writer in Blaokwood'B Magazine. If they could express their torments by yells as piercing and loud in proportion to their size, for example, a wounded hare utters, we should soon be enlightened as to the amount of Buffering in our streets. Some of the hansom cabs which pi; there are admirably turned out and driven, but there are Btill many whose owners aot on the principle of a. minimum of corn and a maximum of whipcord. In one such I was travelling one day. The driver plied his whip vigorously about the tenderest parts of bis horses flanks, and awkwardly allowed the lash to ; strike me aoross the face. The pain was acute, and 1 did not suffer in silence; yet, for one indireot blow that I received in that journey, the unfortunate quadruped receivedscoree. He received punishment at the rato of 50 lashes a mile, which, if his average daily task is moderately computed at 12 miles, would givo the hideous total of 600 lasheß a day, This, incident took place in broad daylight; hut cabmen's night horses are indeed a pitiful class. Nearly all of those that aro assembled nightly in Palace Yard by the Houso of Commons are suffering from navicular disease, caused by fast work on hard pavements, You can see the unhappy animals standing first with one forefoot, and then the other, pointed forward to relieve the paiD, which must resemble toothache on a larger scale, for it is oaused by the decay of a bone nearly two inches long in the centre of the foot, Would society endure horses being worked in this condition if they could signify their plVgs as plainly as a fine lady with neuralgia ? The barbarity of tight-bearing reins was forcibly exposed and condemned by a writor in June, 1875, and certainly the excossive use of them thereafter became less common, but it is still too often to be seen, It would not be seen at all, if people in general understood the peculiar form of torture produced by hy A pair of wellgroomed, 16-bands carriage horses, standing in the'streets, are not subjects to attract commiseration from passers-by. l'he restless tossing of their beads/may be taken for pride and spirit; but what heart-rending groans/could alone express what these Ine animals have to endure I Along 1 the top of the horse's neck runs/a massive sinew, strong enough to ffupport the leverago of the head; it is several of the vertebra noarest the shoulder; then it rune free over the orcst and becomes 'attached again to the vertebra nearest the poll, When'the head is pulled into the position decreed by man's vanity, the vertebra; under, the crest press bard into the'sinew, .and must l oause intense -suffering, sometimes setting up the inflammation known as poll evil—Exchange, ■'[- \