Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-06-22

SAYS: 1.-The horses ho0fs shall be counted
as flint" Miriam claps her cymbals and
sings: '"The horse and the rider hath He
thrown into the sea-" st. John, describ-
ing Christ as coming forth from conquest
10 conquest, represents him as seated on
white horse. In the parade OF Heaven
the Bible makes US hear the clicking OF
boots on the golden pavement as it says:
The armies which were in heaven IOl-
lowed him on white horses"
AS the Bible makes a favOrite of the
horse, the patriarch and the prophet and
the evangelist and the Apostle stroklng
his sleek hide and patting his rounded
neck, and tenderly lifting his exquisitely
formed hoOf and listening with thrill to
the champ of his bit, so all great natures
in all ages have spoken Of him in encOmi-
astic terms. Virgil, in his Georgics, al
most seems to plagiarize from the descrlp-
ton of Job. The Duke Of Wellington
would not allow any one irreverentlY to
touch bis old war bOrse Copenhagen, on
whom he had ridden fifteen hours without
dismOunting at " aterlOo, and when Old
Copenhagen died his master ordered a
military salute fired over his grave. John
Howard showed that he did not exhaust
all his sympatbies in plying the human
race, for when sick he writes home: "Has
my old chaise horse become sick or
spoiled? - There is hardly any passage of
French literature more pathetic than the
lamentatiOn over the death of the war
charger Marchegay. Walter Scott had
so much admiration for the divinely
hOnOred creature of God that in "St.
Romans Well" he orders the girth slack
ened and the blankets thOWn over the
smoking TANKS. Walter Burke, walking
in the park at BeacOnsfeld, musing over
the past, throws his arms around the
WORKOUT horse of his dead son Richard
and weeps upon the horses neck, the
horse seeming to sYmpathiZe in the
memories. Rowland Hill, the great Eng
lish preacher, was caricatured because in
his family prayers he duplicated for the
recovery of sick horse, but when the
horse got well, contrary to all the pro-
phecies of the farTiers, the prayer did not
seem quite so much OF an absurdity.
Those farms in Kentucky and in differ
ent parts of the North where the horse is
trained TO perfection in fieetness and in
beauty and In majesty are well set apart.
There is no more virtue in driving slow
than in driving fast, any more than
freight train going ten miles the hour is
better than an express train going fifty.
There is a delusiOn abroad In the world
that thing must be necessarily good and
Christian If it is slow and dull and plod-
ding. There are very good people who
drive a spawned, CALLED, glandered,
spring-balted, blind-staggered jade. There
is not so much virtue IN a ROsinante as
there is in Bucephalus. At the way
some people drive, Elijah, with his horses
of fire, would have taken three weeks to
get Into heaven. We want swiiter horses
and swifter men and swifter enterprises,
and the church Of God needs TO get off its
jog trOt. Quick tempests, quick light
ming, quick streams; why not quick
horses?
But we do not think that the beauty or
speed of the horse should be cultured at
the expense of human degradation. Horse
races in olden times were under the ban
of Christian people; and in our day the
same institution has come up under ticti-
tious names. And it is called Summer
Meeting" almost suggestive of positive
religious exercises. And it is called an
agricultural Fair" suggestive of every
thing that is improving in the art of farm
ing. But under these deceptive titles are
the same cheating, and the same betting,
and the same drunkenness, and the same
Vagabondage, and the same denominations
that were to be found under the old horse
racing system. | never knew a man yet
who could give himself TO the pleasures
Of the turf for a long reach of time aud
not be battered in morals. They hook up
their spanking team and put on their
sporting cap and light their cigar and
take the reins and dash down the road to
perditiOn. The great day at Saratoga and
Long Branch and Cape MAY and nearly
all the other watering-places is the day
of the races. The hotels are thronged,
every kind of equipage is taken up at an
almost fabulous price; and there are many
respectable people mingliDg with iOckies
and gamblers and libertines and foul
mOuthed men and fiashy women. The
bartender stirs up the brandy
smash. The bets run bigh. The green
horns, supposing all is fair, put in their
money, soon enough to lose it. Three
weeks before the race takes place the
struggle is decided and the men in the
secret know on which steed TO bet their
money. The two men, on the horses rid
ing around. hong before arranged who
shall beat. Leaning from the stand or
from the carriage, are men and women 80
absorbed in the struggle of bone and
muscle and mettle that they make a grand
harvest for the pickpOckets who carry of
the pOcketbooks and portmonnaies. Men
looking on see only two horses with two
riders flying around the ring; but there is
many a man on that stand whose honor
and domestic happiness and fortune
white name, white foot, white flank
inebriety and with fraud and with
profanity and with ruin-black neck,
black foot, black fiank-neek and neck
they go in that moral EPSON. White
horse of honor, black horse of ruin
Death says: Il will bet on the black
horse" Spectator SAYS: 81 viii bet on
the white horse" The white horse OF
honor little way ahead. The black
horse OF ruin, Satan mounted, all the time
gaining on him. Spectator breathless
Put on the lash. Dig IN the spurs. There
They are past the stand. Sure. just as
! expected il. The black horse Of ruin
has won the race and all the galleries OF
darkness cry: "HuZzahl huzgahl' and
the devils come in TO pick up their wagers.
All! my friends, have nothing TO do with
horse racing designations this summer.
Long ago the English Government got
through looking to the turf for the dragon
and light cavalry horse. They found the
turf deprecIated the stock, and il
is yet worse for men. Thomas
Hughes. the member Of Parliament,
and the author known all the world over
hearing that "A new turf enterprise was
being started in this country, wrote a let.
ter in which he said: "Heaven help YOU,
then; for Of all the cankers Of our old
civilization, there Is nothing m this coun.
try approaching in unblushing meanness,
IN rascality holding its head high. 10 this
belauded institution Of the British turf"
Another famous sportsman writes: Glow
many fine domains have been shared
among these hosts Of rapacious sharks
during the last 200 years; and unless the
avafam hp alferad hoxv MANY vnoro ne,