INJURIES TO THE JAW.
Save when needless severity urges timidity to madness, the horse is naturally obedient. This is the instinct of the race. The strong quadruped delights to labor under the command of the weaker biped. Its movements are regulated by him who sits above or behind it. It often waits for hours with its head pulled backward, its mouth pained, and its eyes blinded. All its learning is attention to the sounds of the human voice. It is guided by touches. It submits to the whip when it might easily destroy the whipper. It eats, it drinks, it rests only by man's permission. Yet there are such words as "vice" and "spite" connected with the horse; but there remains to be spoken the word which shall fitly characterize the self-sacrificing life of the noble animal.
Man could not endure such tyranny, nor does the horse, notwithstanding its submissive instinct, live under it very long. The majority perish before they are eight years old. They are worked to an early grave—often they are distorted before the body's growth is completed. Is there any other life so serviceable? Is there any other life which reads so sad a moral? For the time it is allowed to breathe and labor, the horse patiently obeys its tyrant. It aids his vanity; it conforms to his pleasure; it devotes strength, will, and life to man's service.
Let every owner of a horse treat his slave with gentleness. Above all things, let no individual employ the reins as instruments of torture. The horse will neither be wiser nor better for such a mode of punishment. Besides, the man may deteriorate his own or another's property. With the bit a jaw has been broken; and with the snaffle the bone has been injured. An animal with a good neck carries the chin near to the chest. The iron of the snaffle, therefore, cannot pull against the angles of the mouth. It rests upon the gums, and because this point is by some disputed, the following illustration of the fact is inserted.
THE SNAFFLE BEARING UPON THE LOWER JAW.
The cruel bit is, however, in general use with carriage horses. Fashion delights in a vehicle stopped smartly at a door. The greatest noise possible then announces the new arrival. The wheels grate—the horses struggle. The coachman pulls hard—the vehicle sways to and fro. The footman jumps down and pulls at the bell as though life and death depended on a speedy answer to his summons.
All this is, doubtless, very pleasant, but how does it operate upon the poor horses? These, to be pulled up suddenly, must be thrown upon their haunches by the unscrupulous use of the bit. The pressure often wounds more than the gums; frequently the bone of the lower jaw is bruised. The gum then must slough, and a portion of bone must be cast off. The exfoliation of bone is a tedious process accompanied with an abominable stench. The surgeon must be constantly in attendance; otherwise the gum might close over the exfoliating bone and numerous sinuses might be established within the mouth. The exfoliated substance must come away. The abscess, which would announce its retention, would be more painful than the open wound, and ultimately would turn to a foul and ragged ulcer. Such an injury may occur wherever the bit rests, before or behind the tush, and a similar injury, though not to the same extent, will result from an unscrupulous use of the snaffle.
