However, to such chalices the life of a horse is exposed. The indulgence of a habit which adds to the animal's beauty in the eyes of the foot passenger, is regarded as objectionable in one position, while it is admired in another situation; the advent of the smallest excrescence in a large cavity can deteriorate the value of a life. A loss of value entails loss of caste. The life descends to harder work and lessened care. The first step taken, the others rapidly succeed; for it cannot be asserted that, as a general rule, the lower classes appear to advantage, when the custody of a beautiful animal is morally considered.
CHAPTER V.
THE THROAT—ITS ACCIDENTS AND ITS DISEASES.
SORE THROAT.
WITH AND WITHOUT THE BEARING-REIN.
There is, among horse owners, much dispute as to the proper mode of harnessing a horse. Gentility has no feeling either for itself or with any of the many lives by which it is surrounded; this vice of modern time delights in labored imposture, and is always best pleased when it is mistaken for something that it is not. Gentility favors the use of a bearing-rein in the horse's harness. The object is to keep up the head, and to give to an animal with a ewe neck the aspect of one having a lofty crest. The artifice is very transparent; it should deceive nobody save him who is foolish enough to adopt it; but it deprives the poor horse of no little of its natural power. Gentlemen's coachmen complain of the work when their horses are driven ten miles daily, although the distance may be repeatedly broken by visits and by shopping. The cabs of London can only employ the horses which gentlemen have discarded; with these last vehicles, however, no bearing-reins are adopted. The cast-off animal that previously fagged over ten miles, when reduced to the rank, has to pull loads which no genteel carriage would carry, and to travel a sufficient distance to pay horse, driver, conveyance, and proprietor. In the possibility of such a contrast is, perhaps, best exemplified the cruelty of the bearing-rein.