Connecticut western news., 1890-08-06

the king of beasts. I knock off it's coronet and put the crown upon the horse, in every way nobler, whether in shape or spirit or sagacity or intelli- gence or affection or usefulness. He Is semi-human, and knows how to reason on small scale. The centaur of olden times, part horse and part man, seems to be suggestion of the fact that the horse is something more than a beast.
 JOBS APosTRoPHE TO THE HORSE
 Job sets forth his strength, his beauty, his majesty, the panting of his nostril, the paving of his hoof and his enthu- siasm for the battle What Rosa Bon heur did for the cattle and what Land seer did for the dog, Job, with mightier pencil, does for the horse Eighty eight times does the Bible speak of him. He comes into every kingly pro- cession, and into every great occasion, and into every triumph. It is very evi- dent that Job and David and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah and John were very fond of the horse. He came into much of their imagery. A red horse-that meant war; a black horse that meant famine; pale horse that meant death 8 white horse-that l meant victory.
 As the Bible makes favorite of the horse, the patriarch, and the prophet, and the evangelist, and the apostle stroking his sleek hide, and batting his rounded neck, and tenderly lifting his exquisitely formed hoof, and listening with a thrill to the champ of his bit, so all great natures in all ages have spoken of him in encomiastic terms Virgil in his Georgics almost seems to | plagiarize from the description of Job. The Duke of Wellington would not al low any one irreverently to touch his old war horse Copenhagen, on whom he had ridden fifteen hours without dismounting at Waterloo and when old Copenhagen died his master ordered | military salute fired over his grave John Howard showed that he did not exhaust all his sympathy in pitying the human race, for when sick he writes l home, ''Has my old chaise horse be- come sick or spoiled?'
 But we do not t1aink that the speed of the horse should be cultured at the 1 expense of human degradation. Horse races in olden times were under the l ban of Christian people, and in our day l the same institution has come up under | fictitious names. and it is called Summer meeting," almost suggestive 1 of positive religious exercises, and it l is called an agricultural fair" sug- l gestive of everything that is improving in the art of farming But under these deceptive titles are the same cheating and the saLle betting, the same drunk enness, and the same vagabondage, and l the same abominations that were to be found under the old horse racing sys- | tenn.
 RACING sPOus MORALS. I never new man yet who could give himself to the pleasures of the turf for long reach of time and 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 Sara toga and Long Branch and Cape May and nearly all the other watering places is the day of the races. The hotels are thronged, nearly every kind of equipage is taken up at almost fabu- lous price, and there are many respect able people mingling with jockeys and gamblers and ibertines and foul mouthed men and f1ashy women. The bartender stirs up the brandy smash. The bets run high. The greenhorns, supposing all is fair, put in their money soon enough to lose it. Three weeks l 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 riding around long before arranged who shall beat.
 Leaning from the stand or from the carriage are men and women so ab sorbed in the struggle of bone and muscle and mettle that they make a grand harvest for the pickpockets, who carry off the pocketbooks and porte monnaies. Men looking on see only two horses with two riders flying around the ring, but there is many man on that stand whose honor and domestic happiness and fortune-white mane, white foot, white dank-are in the ring, racing with inebriety, and with fraud, and with profanity, and with ruin black neck, black foot, black flank. Neck and neck they go in that moral 1> Epson.
 HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH TT.
 An, my friends, have nothing to dc with horse racing dissipations this sum. mer. Long ago the English govern ment got through looking to the tur1 for the dragoon and light cavalry horse. They found the turf depreciates the stock, and it is yet worse for men. Thomas Hughes, the member of pariar ment and the author, known all the world over, hearing that 8 new turf en- terprise was being started in this coun- try, wrote letter in which he said,
 "Heaven help you, then; for of all the canke.s of our old civilization there is nothing in this country approaching in unblushing meanness, in rascality hold. ing it's head high, to this belauded insti- tuition of the British turf''
 Another famous sportsman writes: 1: sHow many fine domains have been shared among these hosts of rapacious sharks during the last 200 years, and u1less the system be altered how many more are doomed to fall into the same gulfY The Duke of Hamilton, through his horse racing proclivities, in three years got through his entire fortune of $350, 900, and I will say that some of you are being undermined by it. With