Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-14
OUIDA ON THE HORSE.
The Life of Horses in Domesticity Full
Of Pain and Misery.
WOMEN MORE BRUTAL THAN MEN.
A Caustic Article by the Famous Novelist
on the
CRUELTY OF RACING YOUNG HORSES
rwR1rrEN FOR THE DISPATCH I

tempted TO Wish that the horse had never
been tanned by man. The immeasurable e1-
tent of his services has certainly only been
equaled by the equally infinite misery with
which they have been requited. Most ami
mails suffer greatly from the dominance of
man, but, on whole, the horse suffers the
most of all. At its very best the life of
horse in domesticity is an unnatural life OF
almost perpetual restraint; and at its worst it
is hell indeed, only the more cruel by its
contrast with the patience and endurance of
the victim tortured in it.
A life deprived of liberty, denied usually
the indulgence of most of its instincts and
bound down under the caprice and exigen-
cies of human will, it must always be at its
happiest; what tits at its worst, what it has
been for thousands of centuries, it is diff
cult entirely to realize. How far the old
free impulses OF wild creature linger and
stir in the blood Of the broken-in horse we
cannot we'll measure; to judge by the high
spirit and leaping bounds of the colt it
would seem that much of the ulfettered
temper has survived through generations on
generations condemned to servitude.
A PENT-UP EXISTENCE.
The condition in which we keep the horse
is almost as unnatural as that in which the
lion Of the menagerie and the polar bear of
the geological gardens pass their imprisoned
existence. 1t is only as a >filly beside its
dam in the meadows, or at such rare times
as, in maturer years, he is turned out to
grass, that the horse can taste those sweets
of free and open air life for which nature
created bin. The circumstances and obli-
cations of his life are in their best form op-
pressive and very sad to creature naturally
wild and swift as the winds Of his native
steppes.
But think they are made much more
onerous than they might be if his owners
would take more thought for this kind and
long-sufering companion of his toll and of
his pleasure. If men realized what their
lives would be without horses they would
perhaps be more indulgent and more careful
of an animal to which they owe so immense
debt. Loose boxes, instead of being, as
they now are, the privilege of carriage
horses, should be universal; they take up
good deal of space, and so landlords will
not build, and tenants will not rent, stables
large enough to admit of them; but they are
an absolute necessity for the comfort and
well-being of the horse.
Idle, VICIOUS COACHMEN.
Coachmen, who are as rule the most
lazy and vicious class, like to tie up horses
because horse who can roll and stretch at
his will in the straw gives somewhat more
trouble to his cleaners in grooming. Nine
out of ten coachmen will pretend that
horse is a crib-biter, or is given to gnaw his
his own skin, or will invent some falsehood
or another, to obtain leave to tie him up to
his manger. Unhappily the majority of
horse owners are so Ignorant, or so indiffer-
ent, that any fable gees down with them.
There are even owners of racing studs who
know little or nothing of the wants and
ways of horses, while the average owner of
carriage horses deliver them helplessly over
into the hands of his coachman without
troubling himself to acquire the least knowl-
edge of what the animals require in health
or disease.
As rule the piquour, or the head coach
man, is a person who cares very little for
the comfort and enjoyment of his stud, but
heeds only the external appearance and the
feats of speed of his animals. The splendor
of many great stables is only brilliant
cover to much torture and distress permitted
there, while in the innumerable town sta
bles of the middle classes there is little or no
effort to keep the horses shut up there in
happiness or health. If men and women
would be better for both animal and owner
If you do not know whether your horse is
well fed, we'll groomed, well treated and
well shod, you have no business to have
him at all. Yet out of the millions owning
riding, and driving horses how many have
this knowledge?
- CRUEL HoRSEwoMEN.
Women are even worse than ignorant;
they are more brutal than men to horses; it
is always the lady who insists that the bear
ing rein shall rivet the poor animals heads
motionless for the sake of the effect which
she thinks is thus given to her equipage,
while woman will bring in her hunter
bleeding from the spur, sweating from her
one-sided weight, and trembling from her
merciless riding. in worse state than men
will often like their mounts to present
Few men saw their horses mouths, and fidqet
ceaselessly with the spur, as women will,
and while man has usually some more or
less slight knowledge and conscience in his
use and abuse of horses powers the female
rider very frequently has neither in any
degree.
A child cannot, to my thinking, be taught |
too early to ride, even the use of panniers on
donkey for infants should be far more |
general than it is, for it habituates the child |
to the movement of the animal, and is far |
more healthy than the stupid perambulators |
or the arms of the nurse; but when the little |
boy or girl is old enough to be put upon a |
padded saddle, whether borne by donkey or |
pony, it is time enough for him Or for her |
to be taught consideration for the four-footed |
companion which is the cause of so much |
pleasure; the lesson that animals are friends |
and should be treated tenderly, cannot be |
too early inculcated, and it is mistake to |
let small child thrash even q wooden horse. |
1t is an ugly indulgence of the passions, |
best checked at once,
THE RACING FALLACY.
Early impressions are much more indeli |
BILE than is generally believed; and a small |
child NAV, in nine cases out of ten, be taught |
to be kind and considerate as he may be |
taught his alphabet and as he grows up that |
humane tenderness will grow up with him
and resist even the gross and brutalizing in
fuence of schools. But It's useless for even
the best Of men to be humane if it be not so
intelligently; if he does not know how his |
horses should be treated he will be inevita- |
bly, at the mercy of his subordinates concern
ing them. He need not drive himself, un-
less he wishes; but he should know how he |
ought to be driven, He need not feed his
horses himself, but he should know from |
their condition whether the oats he pays for
duly 20 in their stomachs or are transmitted |
into silver for his stableman's pockets Rae
ing, which with a solemn hypocrisy hardly |
equaled about any other thing is gravely
put forward as having for its sole aim and
end the benefit of the equine race, has done
more than anything else to injhre it. The
, horse is not at the maturity OF his powers
until he is some years Of age; yet thanks to
racing he is thought already old at this age;