JOURNEY
.—Journeys are, from various motives, very differently undertaken, and by different degrees of people, according to their various situations, or peculiar avocations, as actuated by the state of their private concerns; whether influenced by a love of pleasure, the pursuit of novelty, prompted by business, or urged by necessity. Amidst which infinity of travellers, there are thousands, particularly in the metropolis, who know nothing of the management of the very valuable and useful companion, upon whose health and safety the pleasure and success of the journey must principally depend. Horses, in general, are so cruelly treated, and so inconsiderately neglected by those who are entire strangers to the attentions they require, and the comforts they stand in need of, that a few general hints cannot be considered inapplicable; at least to such as wish to improve their judgment, and acquire knowledge, from practical experience.
The prudent traveller will never commence a journey of length, without every necessary precaution that can be adopted for general safety during the whole; he will insure to a certainty, by personal examination, the shape, make, fixing, and firmness of his horse's shoes, as the most indispensible prelude to the success of his progress, it being one great step to the prevention of trouble and disquietude. He will observe that every part of his apparatus is sufficiently strong and durable for the purpose, that he may not be likely to encounter the mortification of repairs upon the road; as well as that his BRIDLE is properly adapted to the MOUTH, and the SADDLE to the BACK of the horse. A sore back, or lacerated lips, are sad concomitants in a tedious or a dreary journey. He will also remember at setting off, that the animal he bestrides is formed of materials by no means dissimilar to his own; that he is composed of fibres, nerves, tendons, muscles, flesh, blood and bone; that these are all perishable commodities, liable to accident, sickness, and dissolution; that he has also his passions, his sensations, his appetites, his wants, his pains, and his pleasures. Not possessed of the pleasing powers of communication by speech, it is a duty incumbent upon the rider, not only to speak for, but to take care of (in the strictest meaning of the words) an object so little capable of taking care of itself.
Having all these things in humane recollection, he will advert to the state of the roads, and the season of the year: the mode of treatment, and manner of travelling proper in one, might be improper in the other. Observation should be made upon the constitutional stamen, and innate properties, of the horse, in respect to power and action, that his paces and progress should be regulated in proportion. One may with ease travel EIGHTEEN or TWENTY miles at a stage, with strength and vigour less diminished, than another may twelve; and this it is the more necessary to know and observe, because a horse overworked, or overfatigued, in the early part, very frequently never recovers himself during the whole of a journey. It is a judicious maxim, and should be rigidly adhered to, never to ride or drive horses at an immoderate or unreasonable pace at first setting off in a morning; the carcase being full, brisk action occasions much uneasiness, if not pain; and a horse never goes with comfort to himself till relieved by frequent evacuation. Those who are properly attentive to their own interest in the preservation of their horse, will regulate their pace (as well as the length of their stage) by the HEAT of the WEATHER in SUMMER, or the DEPTH of the ROAD in the WINTER, each having equal and distinct effects upon the strength, and exertion of power, in the horse, as the other.
Much of management at inns depends upon the state a horse is in upon his arrival; none, but fools or madmen, bring them to the termination of a stage in a stream of perspiration; if so, proper attention and treatment cannot be expected, where there are so many to be served beside themselves. Leading a horse about to cool in the WINTER, washing the dirt off by plunging him into a pond, or washing his legs in a stable-yard, are equally destructive, and produce a combination of ills, in colds, bad eyes, swelled legs, cracked heels, and other inconveniences, productive of repentance, when repentance comes too late. Whether the date of perspiration he is in be much or little, the mode of treatment should be proportionally the same. After being permitted to stale, the head and fore quarters should first undergo the ceremony of brisk wisping, or rough dressing, with good clean sweet straw; then turning his head to the rack, (where some sweet hay has been previously deposited,) the hind-quarters and legs experience the same operation; at which time, and not before, the saddle should be taken off, and the general dressing of the carcase and legs should be completed, admitting or excluding external air, according to the season of the year, by which all conditional circumstances must be regulated of course. The examination of the SHOES, the state of the FEET, WARBLES, bowel galls, or injuries by unequal pressure from, or friction of, the saddle, are contingencies too necessary, and too sublime, for the head of an ostler; he leaves possibilities of that kind to be discovered by those whom it more materially concerns; and the principal must therefore look to it HIMSELF, if he expects to be unequivocally satisfied upon those points. Feeding and WATERING depend also upon time, circumstances, and the season; it being the duty of the owner to know whether the horse will eat his corn if he has it; for it is not in the indispensible department of the OSTLER to give a horse an ill name, by proclaiming him a bad feeder. Under which combination of contingencies, dependent upon travelling, it is no bad plan to SEE the horse have his CORN, as well as to KNOW whether he EATS it; for no man can travel with so much judgment and satisfaction, as he who knows the internal support his horse has to work upon.
Horses jaded, and completely fatigued, with long and dirty journies, in dull, dreary, and sometimes tempestuous, weather, are so entirely debilitated, that they prefer REST to FOOD, and can hardly be kept upon their legs, to go through the necessary comforts of dressing and cleaning as an unavoidable prelude to the more substantial relief of the night. In such state they require a little extra attention; an invigorating CORDIAL BALL, so soon as it can possibly be obtained;was a horse of much temporary note a mash of ground malt, and bran equal parts; in want of the malt, a mash of bran and oats, made of boiling water, and six ounces, or half a pound, of honey, may be introduced as a substantial substitute. The water should not be from the pump, but soft, as from a rainy reservoir, or the river, with the chill taken off: if in the winter, the clothing should be warm; the bed plentiful, high, clean, and dry; as well as all such crevices closely stopped as admit currents of air; by which precaution, not only temporary ills, but dangerous diseases, are frequently prevented.
ITCHING
.—Horses are sometimes observed to labor under a severe itching, or internal irritation, which keeps them in a kind of perpetual disquietude; biting such parts as they can get at with the mouth, and rubbing those more remote against such parts of the stall as are most convenient, by which the hair is frequently rubbed off, and the skin excoriated. In cases of this description, the blood does not possess a proper or just equalization of the component parts indispensibly necessary to the standard of health. It mostly arises from a deficiency of crassamentum, or adhesive property of the blood, by which it becomes more or less impoverished, and abounds with a redundancy of SERUM; this, for want of its natural corrector, acquires ACRIMONY, and soon begins to display its mischievous power and tendency to cutaneous morbidity in the way described. Permitted to continue and increase, without salutary counteraction, it extends its progress from a simple itching, in the first instance, to scurfy eruptions, scaly exfoliations, or partial loss of hair; bearing the external appearance of surfeit, degenerating, by degrees, to inveterate MANGE, or confirmed FARCY. To prevent which, the system should be improved, and the circulation enlivened, by an invigoration of the frame: the property of the blood should be enriched by an ADDITION to the QUANTITY, and an ALTERATION in the QUALITY of the food. A great deal of substantial dressing should be adopted in the stable, and regular gentle exercise out; as a collateral aid to which, a course of ANTIMONIAL ALTERATIVE POWDERS should be brought into use, till every symptom of disquietude has disappeared.
JUGGED
—is a professional or technical term with the horse-dealing and stabularian fraternity; and implies a horse's having tumefactions, indurated or inflammatory, under the jaws. But when used in a more serious and emphatic sense among themselves, it is to convey an idea, that the horse said to be jugged, is infected with the GLANDERS.