The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-11
HORSES HAVE NO BRAINS ONLY INSTINCT.

| l My word for 1t, a horse has less brain power than any other animal An os- trich hes more sense than a horse. So has an alligator. That curious, indef- nite quantity known as instinct is at { the bottom of all the tricks the horse learns. Just as he eats from instinct, l he learns tricks. Usually the eating is at the bottom of his entire c1lcation, He doas things for the most part be- cause he gets something good to eat af- ter the doing. It is his natural, search after food that makes him do theT just as he paws away the snow to get at the graSs. After while the actions become habits, ana We will say he is "broken.'
 l Nothing of the sort,
 There never was anything to break. His instincts were simply set in mo tion. Some men take months to teach horse the simplest tric. and weeks to make him bridle-wise. In week I can have the same horse responGfrg easily to my directions in simple tricks It is--.'t the horse. it Is the tya Ter Some men exercise an influence over animals which is almost hypnotic. Tha man himself can't tel how it is done ! In some mysterious manner the horses instincts make him do certain things in certain ways at certain times. He does them just as he eats and win no more evidence of judgment
 1 It is no uncommon thing for horse to open a feed-box t. get at the grain inside. Some people fancy this is proof of intelligence. Really it is natu- { ral nosing after something to eat. Man [ is not the only animal whose heart can l best be reached through his stomach. l There is not the slightest reason to be- lieve that horse has a thinking mind. Here is an instance:
 l During the winter two of our ponics that do a pedestal act, and always get a lump of sugar after it, if they make mo mistakes, rehearsed so much that their pediestals became dun-colored from dirt. When we came into Madi- son Square Garden to perform the little platforms were repainted. What do you think those ponies did?
 1 They refused to act. When led into i the ring and set at their tasks they looked and sniffed at the new pedestals and didn't make movement in the di- Irection of their usual performance.
 It wasn't intelligence made them act thus. The same humps of sugar were waiting at the end. They simply had not sense enough to know their own
 implements in white paint.
 If a horse is taught to go through 9 red door he will have to be taught all over again to go through white one. All doors do not look alike to them. But a horse has nerves, plenty of them. Sometimes I think it is more lthees little electric wires than any, lthing else makes him amenable to teaching. Imagine, then. the skill a trainer must possess to train creatures with nerves, but no ogic, so far as I Jam able to see.
 It takes patience, such as any man may own to- Also courage-an enraged horse is a redoubtable foe, as any crea- ture of temper with no good sense to back it. Any one who has ever seen a human idiot in a rage can understand the situation. There is nothing more horrible than blind, unreasoning, un- lguid,ed temper
 Creatures of nerves are also creatures of fear. Kindness must be exercised at all times in order to overcome it. Un-
 til a horse is unafraid he is valueless. Sometimes they never get over their tempers Not long ago one of our finest thoroughbreds killed his partner. It was in a car The partner fell down. The other literally trampled him to death. He danced on him and refused to stop long after he was dead.
 They never dlwelt in peace, these two. From their first days together they quarreled. The end was inevitable. We should have seen it.
 But the success of trick horse is all in his trainer. The public fancies 1t is
 in the horse, but it is not. Without a sensible trainer trick horse is noth- ling. gfF