How To Treat a Hunter in the Field.
Of the Ten Commandments which man is ordered to obey, it may truly be said that there is no one which it is not alike his interest as well as his duty to fulfil. In every station in life in which it may have pleased God to call him, he rises by being honest—sinks by being dishonest; gains more by forgiving an injury than by avenging it; creates friends by kindness—enemies by unkindness; causes even bad servants to be faithful by making them happy; and thus, while he is apparently serving others, in reality he is materially benefiting himself.
By a similar dispensation of Providence, it is the interest as well as the duty of man to be merciful to the animals created for his use.
The better they are fed, and the more carefully they are attended to, the more valuable they become. If by any accident they be either maimed or lamed, money is gained by giving them rest, lost by forcing them to continue to move; in short, while sickness is costly so long as it remains uncured, any neglect which causes a diseased animal to die, inflicts upon the owner thereof a fine exactly equal to what would have been gained had he been saved.
This humane regulation of Nature, which may justly be entitled "a law for the protection of animals from cruelty," applies to every hunting stable, large as well as small, not only in the United Kingdom, but throughout the world. Indeed if it be lucrative to a man to take care of the sheep, oxen, and other animals he is rearing merely to eat, it is most especially his interest by every attention in his power to enable his hunter to carry him safely; and yet, on this vital subject, for such it is, there usually exists in the horseman a want of consideration which, to any one who will reflect on the subject, must appear highly reprehensible.
It may readily be admitted that hunting men, generally speaking, make great efforts first to obtain horses sufficiently strong to carry them, and secondly, to increase their strength by administering to them plenty of the very best food, with every thing that science can add, to improve what is called their condition. But, strange to say, after having thus made every possible exertion to create or constitute a power sufficient to carry them, after having at great expense and infinite trouble amassed it, they unscientifically exhaust it; and accordingly at the end of a long day it continually happens that a rider dislocates a bone, cracks a limb, or loses his life, from having as it were, like an improvident spendthrift, simply from want of consideration, expended funds necessary for his existence.
When Alexander the Great pompously asked Diogenes what he could do to serve him, the cynic curtly replied, "Get out of my sunshine." In like manner if a heavy man, patting his hunter on the neck, were to ask "What can I do to please you?" the dumb animal, if he could but speak, would just as bluntly reply, "Get off my back;" and yet men, especially heavy ones, will throughout a long day sit smiling in their saddles, without reflecting that by doing so they are every minute and every hour wearying muscles which, after having carried them brilliantly in one run, are, if a second fox can be found, to be required to carry them through another.