£> 6<P is 
 
 
 
 %ox, JVo. 
 
 Essex Institute. 
 
 LIBRARY OF FRAlSrCIS PEA.BODY. 
 
 PRESENTEDBY 
 
 MRS. MARTHA PEABODY. 
 
 The Library Committee shall divide the books and other 
 articles belonging to the Library into three classes, namely: 
 (a) those which are not to be removed from the building; (b) 
 those which may be taken only by written permission of 
 three members of the committee; (c) those which may circu- 
 late under the following rules :— 
 
 Members shall be entitled to take from the Library two 
 folio or quarto volumes, or four volumes of lesser fold, with 
 the plates belonging to the same, upon having them recorded 
 by the Librarian, or Assistant Librarian, and promising to 
 make good any damage they sustain, while in their posses- 
 sion, and to replace the same if lost, or pay a sum fixed by 
 the Library Committee. 
 
 No person shall lend any book belonging to the Institute, 
 excepting to a member, under a penalty of one dollar for 
 each offence. 
 
 The Library Committee may allow members to take more 
 than the allotted number of books upon a written applica- 
 tion, and may also permit other persons than members to use 
 the Library under such conditions as they may impose. 
 
 No person shall detain any book longer than four weeks 
 from the Library, if notified that the same is wanted by an- 
 other member, under a penalty of five cents per day, and no 
 volume shall be detained longer than three months at one 
 time under the same penalty. 
 
 The Librarian shall have power by order of the Library 
 Committee to call in any volume after it has been retained 
 by a member for ten days. 
 
 On or before the first Wednesday in May, all books shall 
 be returned to the Library, and a penalty of five cents per 
 day shall be imposed for each volume detained. 
 
 No book shall be allowed to circulate until one month after 
 its receipt. 
 
THE DETERIORATED CONDITION 
 
 SADDLE-HORSES: 
 
 CAUSES AND THE REMEDY. 
 THE STATE OF OUR CAVALRY, 
 
 AND THE IMPERFECT SYSTEM UNDER WHICH THIS 
 
 FORCE AND THAT OF OUR ARMY GENERALLY 
 
 IS ADMINISTERED. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 T. HATCHARD, 187, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1853. 
 
LONDON : 
 G. J. PALMER, SAVOY STREET, STRAND. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On the deteriorated character of our saddle-horses, and its effect 
 on our cavalry ....... Page 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The causes which led to the former excellence of our saddle- 
 horses, and those which have caused their deterioration — 
 Remedy 11 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Character of Arab horses, and their fitness to restore the qualities 
 lost by our present race horses 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 On the form and action of good saddle-horses . . . 38 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 On the close analogy between the principles which should guide 
 us in breeding saddle-horses, and those by which we have so 
 long succeeded in breeding other domesticated animals . 57 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CAVALRY. 
 
 Our cavalry horooo to be tested during peace, and its discipline 
 improved ......... 77 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INFANTRY. 
 
 A system should be established for bringing forward talented 
 officers in this force ....*... 89 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 6, line 18, for mistakable, read mistakeable. 
 
 10, — 12, for she has now failed, read it has now failed. 
 
 24, — 10, for Groverment, read Government. 
 
 31, — ■ 3, for lienes, read lieues. 
 
 31, — 13, for Flemcon donner read Tlemcon donna. 
 
 31, — IS, for lienes, read lieues. 
 
 36, — 3, /or viendrout, read viendront. 
 
 48, — 6, for hock, scould, read hocks, could. 
 
ON 
 
 THE DETERIORATED CONDITION 
 
 OP OUR 
 
 SADDLE-HORSES, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On the deteriorated character of our saddle-horses, and its 
 effect on our Cavalry. 
 
 Several years ago I published a small work, 
 in which it was stated, that unless the down- 
 ward change then going on in the character of 
 our saddle-horses was arrested, it would soon 
 become difficult to buy a good one at any 
 price; and this prediction has already been 
 fulfilled. Certain at least it is, that while the 
 demand for good saddle-horses remains great, 
 the supply has become almost nil. I should not, 
 
2 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 however, have again written on this subject, 
 had I not lately observed the wretched quality 
 of the horses on which our cavalry are now 
 mounted. This has become so striking as to 
 make it a duty to draw the attention of Govern- 
 ment to the subject. Very many of these 
 horses are unable to carry fourteen stones of 
 weight, even at home, where they are well fed, 
 and exposed to no privations, while on service 
 they will be hard worked, exposed to great 
 privations, and have to carry, on an average, 
 twenty stones of weight when fully equipped 
 for service. 
 
 The horses of the household cavalry are the 
 best, but many are quite unequal to the weight 
 they will have to carry on active service, hav- 
 ing weak loins, a form incompatible with the 
 power necessary to carry a very heavy weight. 
 Even the chargers of the officers, though usually 
 costing much money, are unfitted to go through 
 a severe campaign. Most of them are well 
 bred, but nearly all are characterised by weak 
 forms. 
 
 The incapacity of our cavalry to carry much 
 weight is of little consequence, so long as 
 peace continues ; but when war arrives — and 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 3 
 
 arrive it will — a large portion of our dragoons 
 will be dismounted after a single week's real 
 service ; while the increased demand for horses, 
 consequent on a war, will be met with an in- 
 sufficiency in the supply unknown in the pre- 
 vious history of this country. 
 
 For some years past a large portion of our 
 cavalry horses have been purchased in Ireland, 
 but the supply there has greatly declined, 
 owing to the farmers who bred them having 
 emigrated. 
 
 In the report of the last Ballinasloe fair, as 
 given in the Globe newspaper, I find the fol- 
 lowing paragraph : — " The horse fair was held 
 yesterday. Some good horses were exhibited, 
 but the majority were rather inferior. Both 
 breeders and dealers concurred in stating that 
 one-fourth the number of horses are not now 
 produced in this country, as compared with 
 former years" What the writer here calls 
 good horses, were hunters, not calculated for 
 the road, or coming under the head of useful 
 saddle-horses. 
 
 A large portion, too, of the Yorkshire 
 farmers, who till lately bred so many of our 
 best saddle and harness-horses, have now 
 
 is 2 
 
4 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 ceased to breed either. The reasons they 
 assign for this is :— first, the large quantity of 
 com which our well-bred horses now require 
 while growing ; secondly, the difficulty, after 
 this expense has been incurred, of rearing 
 anything that is good, or worth much money ; 
 and, thirdly, the strong disposition in this 
 stock to become unsound. The result is, that 
 a large portion of Yorkshire farmers, who for- 
 merly entered largely into the breeding of 
 well-bred horses, now breed only cart-horses, 
 one of which, at only two years old, will sell 
 for £40. 
 
 Looking, then, at the present insufficient 
 supply of horses calculated for our cavalry, 
 and at the further diminution of it about to 
 take place, I submit that a crisis has arrived. 
 If this be so, let us take advantage of a period 
 of military inaction by adopting some well- 
 considered measure calculated to insure, in 
 future, an adequate supply of good saddle- 
 horses. 
 
 It will be said, that our cavalry-horses can- 
 not be worse than those of other countries, so 
 long as foreigners purchase them. But they 
 ought to be, as they long were, much better, 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 5 
 
 seeing our great extent of fine pastures, our 
 large farms, our great demand for the best 
 class of horses, and the large sums we are 
 ready to give for them. 
 
 France does not breed a sufficient supply of 
 horses to meet her own demand, which is not 
 surprising, seeing her small amount of pastures, 
 the minute extent of her farms, and the poverty 
 of her farmers. She purchases, in conse- 
 quence, from Germany, many horses for her 
 cavalry, and to a very limited extent she some- 
 times purchases English horses for it. Her 
 cavalry horses, however, are much improved, 
 as well as the riding of her dragoons. In 
 short, her cavalry, as seen at Paris, has become 
 better than ours. 
 
 The other great military nations breed all the 
 horses they require for their cavalry. Russia 
 and Austria possess very valuable ones for 
 light cavalry in their Polish, Cossack, and 
 Hungarian horses. They have but few well 
 calculated for heavy cavalry, but their quality 
 is improving. 
 
 The Russian artillery horses are admitted to 
 be admirable. 
 
 The Prussians have, as a whole, still the 
 
6 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 best mounted cavalry on the continent, but her 
 finest breeds are become much deteriorated ; 
 and in this way — there was, it seems, in that 
 country after the conclusion of the last war a 
 universal Anglo-mania for our race-horses, which 
 they purchased largely for many years, and 
 crossed extensively with their own breeds ; 
 some of which before this event were excel- 
 lent, uniting compact and fine forms with good 
 breeding, and much speed. This form it seems 
 has disappeared, and the long legs and shallow 
 bodies of our race-horses substituted ; and so 
 extensively has this cross been had recourse 
 to, that the pure and best Prussian breeds are 
 lost. 
 
 There is a fact well known to all Prussians 
 taking interest in horses which bears directly 
 on this subject, and is unmistakable. It is 
 this : — before the blood of our race-horses had 
 been so largely had recourse to in Prussia, the 
 king was accustomed to be driven between 
 Berlin and Potzdam in little more than an 
 hour, the distance being twenty miles. Since, 
 however, the blood of the old breeds of Prus- 
 sian horses has been lost in its purity, his 
 majesty is no longer able to get horses capable 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 7 
 
 of performing that task ; a change generally 
 admitted to be the result of introducing into 
 that country our racing blood in so large a 
 stream. Foreigners still buy many of our 
 horses, but chiefly for harness, and this on 
 account of their high stature and showy ap- 
 pearance. The Germans and French still buy 
 a few of our best saddle-horses while these are 
 very young, and being good judges they select 
 our best, and give from their scarcity enor- 
 mously high prices. 
 
 The French cavalry horses are inferior to 
 ours in speed, but they are much hardier and 
 last much longer on service, as was shown 
 during the last war in Spain, when our horses 
 were better than at present. In that war the 
 mortality amongst our horses from disease and 
 work was enormous, and three times greater 
 than amongst those of the French. The legs 
 of the French horses were never what, in vulgar 
 but well understood language, is called greased, 
 while those of ours were but too often so. Thus 
 the expense of keeping up our cavalry in Spain, 
 owing to the delicacy of its horses, was in- 
 tolerable. In the next war, if at all protracted, 
 the mortality will be much greater, because 
 
8 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 the quality of our horses has become much 
 worse. 
 
 Our cavalry horses are not wanting either in 
 speed or breeding, but in strength and consti- 
 tutional vigour. If it were only to reduce the 
 ruinous expense of this force in war we ought, 
 while peace continues, to improve our breed 
 of saddle-horses, enabling them to carry our 
 dragoons, when on service, with tolerable ease. 
 The great wear and tear, and consequent 
 cost of this force in war is a serious evil, but 
 less than that of losing brave men whose lives 
 depend much on their horses maintaining their 
 strength. 
 
 When we reflect on the important services 
 good cavalry, well commanded, may perform, 
 the present deteriorated condition of our 
 cavalry horses calls for all the attention that 
 Government can give to it. A charge of 
 cavalry, while its horses remain fresh, made 
 at the right moment, sometimes decides a 
 great battle. But cavalry, to be efficient, must 
 have its horses equal to the weight they have 
 to carry, for dragoons on tired horses are use- 
 less. 
 
 Our light cavalry, unlike that of the great 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 9 
 
 continental nations, has to act in line, so that its 
 duties differ little from those of heavy cavalry, 
 and ought therefore to be mounted on horses 
 of much physical power. At Waterloo, though 
 at the opening of a campaign, our light cavalry 
 failed from want of physical power, while our 
 heavy cavalry charged successfully, from its 
 greater weight. 
 
 Our artillery horses were, down to a recent 
 period, the best in our army ; they are now 
 become as bad as the rest. 
 
 Looking at our great facilities for breeding 
 horses, we ought, without taking credit to our- 
 selves for much skill, to possess now what 
 we formerly so long had — the best mounted 
 cavalry in the world; while, for bearing up 
 under the fatigues and privations of a severe 
 campaign, both our cavalry and artillery horses 
 are now become the worst in the world. 
 
 The late Lord Harcourt, who was considered 
 in his time, an excellent cavalry officer, told 
 me so long ago as the year 1826, that our 
 cavalry horses in the American war were very 
 much better than they had been since ; that 
 the 15th and 16th regiments of light dragoons, 
 which went with him to America, and were 
 
10 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 raised for that war, exhibited a union of 
 strength and activity unknown at the time he 
 was speaking (1826), yet our cavalry horses in 
 1826 were much better than at present. 
 
 The Polish, Cossack, and Hungarian horses 
 being little removed from a state of nature, 
 still possess the one great attribute of animals 
 in that condition, namely, great hardiness. 
 
 This is the only civilized country that has 
 ever succeeded in breeding anything like a suf- 
 ficient supply of a fine class of saddle-horses, 
 and she has now failed. 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The causes which led to the former excellence of our saddle- 
 horses, and those which have caused their deterioration — 
 Remedy. 
 
 This country having been long celebrated 
 for its saddle-horses, I shall proceed to show 
 the causes of that excellence, after which I 
 shall endeavour to point out the causes of the 
 present deterioration. 
 
 The main cause of their former excellence 
 was the creation of what is called our " Turf." 
 This establishment worked well for a long 
 period of time, exercising a preponderating 
 and admirable influence over the character of 
 our useful saddle-horses. 
 
 Doubtless, gambling and pleasure have ever 
 been the sole objects of those who bred our 
 race-horses ; but their large importations of 
 good Arabs, followed as they were by a careful 
 
12 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 and continuous selection, not for one quality, 
 but for a fine union of qualities, succeeded for 
 many years in producing both for the turf and 
 for all useful and pleasurable purposes, the 
 best saddle-horses in the world. 
 
 We possess a document which throws some 
 light on the nature of the tasks our earlier 
 horses performed. Their stature so late as 
 1764 seems to have ranged from fourteen to 
 fifteen hands ; a horse of the latter height 
 being considered tall. 
 
 The late Mr. Smith, in his work on " Breed- 
 ing for the Turf," refers to a document which 
 shows the nature of the tasks performed at 
 Newmarket from 1718 to 1764, but it is only 
 from the first period to 1757 that the distances 
 run are always mentioned, while the weight 
 carried is often omitted. 
 
 Referring to this document, Mr. Smith says, 
 " It appears that in the year 1718, twenty- 
 three matches were made at Newmarket, and 
 in all but one of them, the distance run was 
 four miles. In the next year only two races 
 are recorded. First, the Duke of Wharton's 
 Galloway, 8st. 101b., against Lord Hillsbo- 
 rough's Fiddler, 12st, six miles. At New- 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 13 
 
 market, in 1720, there were twenty-six matches, 
 none of them less than four, some six miles. 
 In October, the Duke of Wharton's Honeyskin, 
 list. 101b., against Lord Hillsborough's Speed- 
 well, the best of three heats, twelve miles, 1 ,000 
 guineas. The match was drawn. In 1721, 
 twenty matches were run, and with few excep- 
 tions, these distances seem to have been run 
 up to the year 1757. The published account 
 from which these performances are taken refer 
 only to the short period mentioned, and no 
 consecutive account of the running, even at 
 Newmarket, appears to have been kept until 
 late in the last century. We have selected, 
 however, the chronicled performances of a few 
 horses. One of these, called Exotic, com- 
 menced his running 1760, and continued on 
 the turf to the year 1767. 
 
 " We know not how many times this horse 
 started during this period ; but in the course 
 of it he won eighteen times. The account says 
 that he won in 1767, which was his seventh 
 year on the turf, a race at Peterborough, con- 
 sisting oifour heats ; the distance of the other 
 races which he won are not stated, but they 
 probably were not less than four miles. 
 
14 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 " Cartouch was only fourteen hands high, 
 but it is supposed that no horse was able to 
 run with hirn of his time, carrying from eight 
 to twelve stones weight ! 
 
 "In 1737, Black Chance, at five years' old, 
 won a plate at Durham, carrying ten stones ; 
 with the same weight he won the Ladies' Plate, 
 at York, in that year — distance four miles. In 
 1738, he won the King's Plate at Guildford, 
 beating several horses. After this he won the 
 King's Plate at Salisbury, then the King's 
 Plate at Winchester; afterwards the King's 
 Plate at Lewes ; and, lastly, the King's Plate 
 at Lincoln; all these in the course of one sea- 
 son ; every race four miles, and every race 
 contested ! It appears that in the October of 
 the same year this horse started for the King's 
 Plate at Newmarket, when he fell in running ; 
 this was the only time he was beaten that year. 
 In 1739 he seems to have won twice. In 1740, 
 he won at Wresham, at Shrewsbury, and at 
 Oswestry, carrying thirteen sto?ies, he won at 
 Denbigh, at Chester, and won at Manchester. 
 In 1744 he walked over for the Annual Plate 
 at Farnden. 
 
 " It does not appear whether this horse ran 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 15 
 
 in 1738, but if he did he was running and win- 
 ning, carrying twelve stones. He won, in 
 short, every time that he started in this year. 
 In 1741 he won at Chester, at Manchester, and 
 at Hereford. In 1742, he received a £15 
 premium seven gears consecutively. 
 
 The following extract is taken from an ac- 
 count of a horse called the Carlisle gelding: 
 " He had no rival in carrying all degrees of 
 weight in supporting repeated heats, travelling 
 and constant running, and this maintained to 
 an age seldom heard of. 
 
 " Johnny, a horse of a more recent period, 
 won or received forfeit twenty-five times ! 
 
 "Mark Antony started twenty-eight times, 
 and won twenty." 
 
 This account of the running of our older 
 horses is interesting, because every one ac- 
 quainted with our present race-horse knows that 
 none of them could perform a fourth part of 
 these tasks without breaking down. We see, 
 indeed, the best horses, at the present day, 
 after winning a race of only two miles, dis- 
 abled from ever running again. 
 
 If, after reading these extracts from Mr, 
 Smith's work, the reader will look at the por- 
 
16 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 traits of such of our older race-horses as have 
 been handed down to us by the pencil of Sey- 
 mour and other artists, he will find that the 
 forms of those horses corresponded with the 
 great tasks they accomplished, for they 
 had short legs, deep bodies, wide hips, and 
 strong loins. The fine shapes of those 
 horses show how little, as a race, they had 
 been injured by their great performances, 
 which commenced early in the reign of Charles 
 the Second. 
 
 With the exception of a single race at New- 
 market, of four miles, and only run twice a 
 year, two miles, two miles and a half, one mile 
 and a half, and one mile, are the distances now 
 usually ran. Then how is this four mile race 
 run by our present horses ? By cantering 
 through a great part of it. The tasks now 
 performed, however, are enough, and more 
 than enough, for the diminished powers of our 
 present horses. 
 
 Besides the great change which has taken 
 place in the forms of our race-horses, they are 
 become strongly disposed to lameness. Before 
 even starting for their first race many of the 
 best are lame, others are rendered so for life 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 17 
 
 by running a short race like that called " the 
 Derby." Nearly all are more or less infirm 
 from their birth, knuckling in their pastern 
 joints before they have done an hour's work. 
 
 Our race-horses have been much injured 
 under the existing practice on the turf of 
 breeding them much in and in. Their great 
 number seems at first sight sufficient to pre- 
 vent this, but we must recollect that it is 
 only from a small portion of the whole that 
 the race is kept up ; every one breeding for 
 the turf sending his mares only to the stallions 
 whose stock have most speed. 
 
 Had the old tasks been maintained this evil 
 would have been avoided, because, when en- 
 durance and constitutional vigour became at 
 all reduced in any stud, the owner of it would 
 naturally have sent his mares to a stallion yet 
 in possession of those qualities. Thus we see 
 into what a vicious circle the present system 
 of making momentary speed everything has 
 led us. In viewing the defects of our present 
 race-horses, as respects useful purposes, I must 
 add that they exhibit straight shoulders, and 
 to an extent unknown to our turf so late as 
 thirty years ago. This great defect in our 
 
 c 
 
18 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 race-horses is another cause which makes it 
 now so difficult to breed the first class of 
 saddle-horses, and is one of the results of 
 breeding " in and in," for the purpose of fol- 
 lowing up a blood which has had momentary 
 success in racing. Few people unconnected 
 with the turf can imagine the degree of con- 
 stitutional weakness exhibited by our present 
 race-horses. The growing stock requires as 
 much corn daily as they can eat, and for the 
 first twelve months each has also the whole 
 milk of a cow. It will here be said it is the 
 early running which renders high feeding of 
 the young stock necessary, but it is not so ; 
 on the contrary, many of the foals possess so 
 little vigour, that without unnaturally high 
 feeding they would be mere weeds, as they 
 usually are when bred by persons not intend- 
 ing them for the turf, who in consequence do 
 not feed their young horses so expensively. 
 This high feeding sometimes enables those 
 who breed for the turf to produce very large 
 animals, but wanting that compact form which 
 springs from much constitutional vigour in 
 the parents. Nothing is so different as the 
 form produced by extravagant feeding, and 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 19 
 
 that which results from much constitutional 
 vigour. 
 
 The high stature of our race-horses has given 
 a like form to nearly all our mixed breed of 
 horses, and with more or less delicacy and 
 want of constitutional vigour. Another bad 
 consequence of this high stature, and accom- 
 panying delicacy, is the present frequency of 
 the disease called roaring, which indicates 
 imperfect action of the lungs. This disease 
 seems to be every year increasing amongst our 
 tall horses, while it is comparatively little 
 known amongst those whose stature does not 
 exceed 15h. 2 in. On the continent, where the 
 horses are much less delicate, roaring is 
 unknown. 
 
 Jt is now many years since I have seen any 
 English horses with those very flat fore legs, 
 which result from very large back sinews, for- 
 merly so common amongst our well-bred horses, 
 and yet to be seen amongst the best Arabs. 
 
 It is curious to observe the helplessness of 
 our thorough-bred foals, which usually cannot 
 move about for some days after being born. 
 On first observing this I thought it natural, but 
 soon found it was the pure effect of constitu- 
 
 c 2 
 
20 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 tional weakness in the parents, as the foals of 
 all other breeds of horses throughout the world 
 run about as soon as they are dropped. 
 
 Notwithstanding the grant of public bounties 
 to our turf for the encouragement of a fine 
 breed of saddle-horses, we cannot in the ab- 
 sence on the part of Government of any attempt 
 to influence the proceedings on the turf, be 
 surprised to find that the Jockey Club met the 
 growing weakness of their horses only by giving 
 them less to do, in other words, by giving them 
 slighter tasks to perform when they found the 
 old ones had become too severe. 
 
 The Jockey Club, as a body, being content 
 to see their horses lose every quality but speed, 
 no individual of that society can be expected 
 to make an effort to arrest this evil by taking 
 a course in his individual capacity calculated 
 to diminish the speed of his horses, so long as 
 speed alone is the only quality required under 
 the existing system of running. 
 
 To the Jockey Club, or to the gentlemen 
 who breed our race-horses, it matters not what 
 is the character of their horses as a whole, 
 each individual desiring only to have the best 
 of that whole. The question now is, whether 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 21 
 
 it be not desirable to grant such bounties on 
 the part of Government as shall enable it to 
 influence the proceedings of the turf, and thus 
 render them subservient to national and useful 
 purposes. These bounties pass under the name 
 of King's or Queen's Plates, because paid out 
 of the privy purse, and the Crown obtains the 
 money to meet this special disbursement for 
 the benefit of the public ; yet those who receive 
 these bounties make to the public no return ; 
 yet surely when the Jockey Club began to 
 diminish the tasks formerly so well and so 
 long performed by their horses, this downward 
 course should have been met by Government 
 advising the Crown either to suspend the pay- 
 ment of these bounties altogether, or to increase 
 their amount to an extent which would enable 
 it so to influence the proceedings of the turf, 
 as to get there maintained the old standard for 
 regulating the tasks the horses were called on 
 to perform. Instead of taking one of these 
 obvious courses, the Jockey Club was allowed 
 successively to diminish the tasks which for so 
 many years our race-horses had so well and so 
 easily performed. 
 
 But we are told that these lighter tasks are 
 
22 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 the result of making our racers run at a much 
 earlier age, at two instead of at four years old. 
 Doubtless, this change in the age at which 
 the animals are made to run, has contributed 
 to the totality of the evils complained of; but 
 this system of early running did not exist 
 when the tasks performed were great, and 
 would never have been adopted had the old 
 standard for measuring the performances on 
 our turf been maintained. Nothing at least 
 can be more certain than that horses bred to 
 obtain increased bounties, but having to per- 
 form the old tasks, would not be allowed by 
 their owners to run until they had arrived at 
 what was found to be the best age for per- 
 forming those tasks. 
 
 The qualities in our race-horses which are 
 become so deteriorated are natural ones, namely, 
 constitutional vigour, freedom from hereditary 
 diseases, compactness of form, and great en- 
 durance under severe exertion. A general 
 deterioration of the natural qualities of domes- 
 ticated animals consequent on having been 
 long subjected to highly unnatural treatment, 
 can only be remedied by having recourse to 
 fresh blood, to that of a race which as yet has 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 23 
 
 been permitted to live in a more natural state ; 
 and I hope before closing this work to adduce 
 facts which will fully bear out this opinion. 
 
 I formerly wished Government to create a 
 great haras, making it directly influence the 
 quality of our saddle-horses ; but, besides the 
 certainty of improper persons being too often 
 placed at the head of such an establishment, it 
 would labour under the disadvantages of being 
 unattended by competition, thus losing the 
 mainspring on which great productive excel- 
 lence depends. 
 
 If, however, we are to continue granting 
 public bounties to the turf, it is surely desir- 
 able to obtain for the public some return. 
 
 The plan I propose rests on a sound prin- 
 ciple — that of sharp competition amongst the 
 breeders of our race-horses to obtain very 
 liberal bounties, but under conditions which 
 should render the outlay one of public utility. 
 
 It is impossible to determine, a priori, or 
 until some trials have been made, the exact 
 amount of bounties that will suffice to secure 
 to the public the object in view. Probably 
 three or four hundred pounds would be about 
 the sum to award to the winners of certain 
 
24 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 races, making no allowance for age. How 
 many of such races should be run in the course 
 of a season can only be finally determined by 
 gradually feeling our way in the new direction. 
 For the first few years the aggregate amount 
 of bounties annually required would be much 
 greater than after sufficient time had elapsed 
 for importing a considerable amount of fresh 
 blood. 
 
 Goverment would only have to determine 
 the nature of the tasks to be performed for 
 which it granted the new bounties, leaving to 
 the owners of the horses to find out the best 
 mode of managing them. This would not fail 
 to succeed if Government only sternly main- 
 tained a fixed standard for measuring the 
 powers of the horses. Under this four miles 
 with heats should be the shortest distance run 
 for which the new bounties were granted. One 
 or two races in the year should be five miles and 
 heats. We need not fear the effect of these 
 distances being evaded, as is now the case with 
 the four mile race, yet maintained by allowing 
 the horses that start for it to do little more 
 than canter during a great part of the race. 
 Why ? Simply because now the proprietors 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 25 
 
 of such horses are all in the same boat, by all 
 possessing horses unfitted for running the whole 
 of that distance. Thus it is not worth any 
 man's while now breeding horses for our turf 
 to change the nature of his stud on account 
 of this one four-mile race. But grant liberal 
 bounties annually for several four-mile races, 
 and you will make it the interest of all who 
 start horses for those races to breed such as 
 they think best calculated to win them. 
 
 Insist on proper tasks being performed in 
 return for more liberal bounties, and you will 
 soon find our "turf" abounding with horses 
 displaying a fine union of constitutional vigour, 
 physical strength, endurance, with sufficient 
 speed for every useful and pleasurable pur- 
 pose. It can matter nothing to the gentlemen 
 on the turf what is the average speed of their 
 horses. Their sole object is to win money, 
 and if endurance be in future made by more 
 liberal bounties as necessary to enable their 
 horses to perform the new tasks, as speed is 
 now to enable them to perform the present 
 tasks, the owners of our race-horses will be in 
 future as desirous to breed horses displaying a 
 
26 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 fine union of qualities, as they now are to breed 
 horses wanting every quality but speed. 
 
 No one dislikes gambling of every kind more 
 than I ; but so long as we have a great racing 
 establishment, patronized both by the Crown 
 and the Government, and paid annually a sum 
 of public money by way of bounty for a public 
 object, we ought to try at least to obtain for 
 the public some return for this outlay. 
 
 If in commencing this new system it was 
 found, on trial, that our present breed of race- 
 horses could, without any admixture of fresh 
 blood, best perform the new tasks, no fresh 
 blood would be needed, and many of my 
 observations under that head, being thus proved 
 erroneous, would fall to the ground. If, on the 
 contrary, it should be found that our present 
 breed of horses could not compete in the per- 
 formance of the new tasks with horses that had 
 an admixture of fresh blood in their veins, 
 then that mixture, we may be assured, would 
 be generally had recourse to. If, on the other 
 hand, it was found that the new tasks were 
 best performed by Arabs of pure blood, then 
 that class of horse would be alone had recourse 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 27 
 
 to by those who competed for the increased 
 bounties. One of the many advantages result- 
 ing from this plan is its simplicity, requiring 
 Government only to determine the nature of 
 the tasks to be performed; namely, the dis- 
 tances to be run, and the weights to be carried, 
 leaving all the rest to be worked out under the 
 principle of competition by the owners of the 
 horses. 
 
 One consequence resulting from this plan 
 being carried out would be the certainty of the 
 best horses being imported that were obtain- 
 able in the East, as some of the persons who 
 breed our race-horses would go there them- 
 selves to select horses, while others would send 
 competent judges there for that special pur- 
 pose. No allowance of weight should be made 
 in order to encourage the system of late years 
 so much indulged in of running horses too 
 early, diminishing by this practice their con- 
 stitutional vigour, and disposing them to early 
 infirmities; evils which we know, by experi- 
 ence, extend to all our mixed breeds of saddle- 
 horses. Though it would be well not to neglect 
 this precaution, it is not however likely to be 
 required, seeing that if our race-horses were 
 
28 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 called on to perform the old tasks, they would 
 be pretty sure to be started by their owners at 
 the age best calculated to enable their horses 
 to perform them well. 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Character of Arab horses and their fitness to restore the qualities 
 lost by our present race-horses. 
 
 Most of the Arab horses which have of late 
 years come to this country, have not been of 
 the first class, being purchased on the coasts of 
 certain Eastern countries, by persons having 
 little acquaintance with horses beyond that of 
 profit and loss in buying and selling them. 
 Thus, while the Arab horses can only be pur- 
 chased in the Desert at high prices, no one 
 either in England or India will now give those 
 prices for any class of Arabs, seeing that they 
 have very little marketable value here since 
 discarded on our turf. Still, even under this 
 discouragement, an Arab horse now and then 
 arrives in this country, having much merit, and 
 
30 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 in breeding from which good stock has been 
 obtained for every purpose, save that of com- 
 peting on the turf with the speed of our present 
 race-horses. The Arabian horses, as found in 
 the Desert, are not without speed, as was shown 
 some years ago at Goodwood ; but they can 
 only run at their full stretch for about half-a- 
 mile. At a hand gallop, and under a burning 
 sun, their endurance is scarcely credible, and 
 their value in the Desert rests on the distances 
 they can travel at that pace without fatigue or 
 being attacked by staggers from long exposure 
 to an ardent sun. When a horse has acquired 
 in the Desert reputation for this power, a large 
 sum of money can be obtained for him, as the 
 life of a freebooter is often made to depend on 
 the endurance of his horse. 
 
 General Daumas, who has been in Africa, 
 either as Consul or General, since the year 
 1837, and speaks the language, says in his work 
 on the horses of the Sahara district, that a 
 good horse there will travel during five or six 
 days continuously journeys from 75 to 90 miles, 
 and after two days' rest will be fit to recom- 
 mence this task. He adds that " Les voyages 
 dans le Sahara ne sont pas toujours d'aussi 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 31 
 
 long haleine, mais il n'est pas rare, d'un autre 
 cote, de voir des chevaux faire cinquante ou 
 soixante lienes dans les vingt-quatre heures." 
 In other words, that it is not uncommon to 
 see horses in that country travel in twenty-four 
 hours from 150 to 180 miles ! 
 
 After citing other facts, illustrating the great 
 powers of endurance of the horses in Sahara, he 
 adds, "Et pourquoi chercherais-je a prover ces 
 faits ? Tous les anciens officers de la division 
 d'Oran peuvent raconter qu'en 1837, un General 
 attach ant la plus grande importance a obtenir 
 des renseignements de Flemcon donner son 
 propre cheval a un Arabe pour aller les lui 
 chercher. Celui-ci parti du Chateauneuf a 
 quatre heures du matin, et rentrait le lende- 
 main a la meme heure apres avoir fait 70 
 lienes (210 miles) sur un terrain bien autre- 
 ment accidente que le desert." The General 
 then adds, " Le cheval European a disparu de 
 noire armee d?Afrique dont il ne pouvait se- 
 conder ni les charges impetueuses ni les 
 marches incessantes. II a ete remplace par le 
 cheval du pays" 
 
 The General then says that the French Go- 
 vernment have established three depots or 
 
32 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 haras for the maintenance of the best stal- 
 lions they could select in the country. When 
 he wrote, the number of these stallions was 
 seventy-four ; but he says, instead of being con- 
 tent with this number, it must be raised to 150. 
 It seems that to these depots the farmers send 
 their mares, and that the quality of the race is 
 improving under this system. 
 
 General Daumas brings forward the opinion 
 of Abd-el-Kader to show that the horses called 
 barbes, which abound in Africa, descended 
 originally from Arabs. Whatever they de- 
 scended from, they possess wonderful powers 
 of endurance, and some of the best should be 
 imported into this country. 
 
 In a letter written by the lamented Burkhart, 
 and lent to me for perusal by Mr. Sewell, of 
 the Veterinary College, the writer says that a 
 breed of horses called Koheys is the best in 
 Syria, yet that amongst them " not more than 
 about 200 of the first class of horses are usually 
 to be found, each of which may be worth in the 
 Desert itself from £150 to £200. Of these 
 horses very few, if any, ever found their way to 
 Europe, although it is through them alone that 
 successful attempts could be made to ennoble 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 33 
 
 the European race, while the usually imported 
 horses are all of a second or third quality." 
 
 We may be assured, for the reasons already 
 stated, that these prices are now never given 
 by those who buy Arab horses for the Indian 
 or English market. Very high prices are 
 sometimes given by a foreign sovereign or 
 wealthy foreign individual sending an agent 
 into the Desert for this special purpose, and 
 obtaining by these means horses very superior 
 to those which usually arrive here or in 
 India. 
 
 There are here two conflicting opinions re- 
 specting the merits of Arab horses, and both 
 are erroneous. The first is, that no Arab 
 horse is worth having ; the second, that all are 
 good. There are to be found in certain 
 Eastern countries, by those who will seek 
 them, Arab horses capable of satisfying the 
 best judges ; but the great mass of them, 
 though good for hard work, are not agreeable 
 to ride. We want true, safe, and agreeable 
 action, while Arab horses having such are not 
 numerous even in the Desert. The natives of 
 those regions care, it seems, little about the 
 form, or even the safe action of their horses, 
 
 D 
 
34 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 provided they are very enduring under severe 
 exertion, enabling the rider to travel long 
 distances in a few hours. But individual 
 horses have been occasionally brought to this 
 country with all the qualities of first-rate 
 hacks. 
 
 One of the objections made here to Arab 
 horses is, that they trip in their walk, all, how- 
 ever, admitting that they don't trip in then- 
 other paces. The reason of their tripping in 
 their walk is their being tied from an early age 
 by their forefeet instead of the head. Thus, 
 in their walk they are compelled to step short, 
 being just what they ought not to do. When 
 not subjected to this barbarous treatment, 
 Arab horses, I believe, walk generally as well 
 as any others. 
 
 There is now in London an Arab horse that 
 was obtained by a Spanish gentleman, his pre- 
 sent owner, many years ago by sending out a 
 competent person with a special mission to pur- 
 chase the best animals he could find in one of the 
 Eastern Deserts, and this horse was the result 
 of that mission. He is now very old, but his 
 form is quite unlike that of the Arabs usually 
 imported, while very like the portraits of se- 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 35 
 
 veral of our best horses that raced about the 
 middle of the last century. 
 
 There is a black Arab in London, the pro- 
 perty of M. Helbert, the action of which is 
 perfect both in the walk, trot, and canter. M. 
 Helbert tells me an Arab he previously had 
 walked quite as well as his present one. Out 
 of several Arab horses that have arrived here 
 for her Majesty and Prince Albert, two or three 
 have turned out excellent hacks, and walk 
 well. It is therefore certain that Arabs can be 
 selected, even under the present system of the 
 Desert of tying them by their feet, instead of 
 their head, that are excellent hacks. 
 
 Other horses have during the last thirty 
 years arrived in this country from the East 
 whose progeny have been very good. The 
 Wellesley Arabian, imported by the late Lord 
 Cowley, only about forty or fifty years ago 
 was so speedy that his blood yet holds a 
 high place at Newmarket. 
 
 General Daumas says, and I believe truly, 
 that people who want the best class of either 
 Arabs or Barbes must not rest content to send 
 to the coasts for them ; that, on the contrary, 
 
 d 2 
 
36 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 they must send special agents into the heart 
 of the Desert. 
 
 " Ces nobles animaux ne viendrout pas nous 
 trouver sur le littoral, il faut aller les chercher 
 dans l'interieur des terres, souvent au loin." 
 
 The reader has seen that Burkhart travelling 
 in Syrian deserts expresses the same opinion 
 as to the only mode of obtaining in these coun- 
 tries the best horses. 
 
 Whenever competent judges shall go into 
 the heart of the Desert, ready to give high 
 prices, they will obtain very valuable horses, 
 but such persons must look to fine form and 
 true action, as well as endurance. On no 
 account must they select horses with straight 
 shoulders or weak loins. Neither must they 
 object to a horse on account of low stature, 
 because when our system of feeding is applied 
 to small but vigorous Arabs, the progeny ob- 
 tained from them will, like that obtained from 
 their predecessors on our turf, be only too 
 much disposed to acquire high stature, in doing 
 which they, after a time, wholly lose the com- 
 pact and strong form of their ancestors. 
 
 There is no doubt that the stature of our 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 37 
 
 early race-horses did not exceed fourteen 
 hands, while that of our present ones is rarely 
 less than sixteen hands ; and often more, 
 while they have lost the fine symmetry of their 
 ancestors, that performed so long and so well 
 great tasks. 
 
 Nothing is more certain than that there are 
 Arab horses to be found more agreeable to ride 
 than any others in the world, save a very few 
 of our thorough-bred, or nearly thorough-bred 
 horses, but these are now become such rare 
 exceptions as only to make us regret the more 
 that the great mass of our well-bred horses are 
 become so bad for all useful purposes. Even 
 those that are so agreeable are usually dis- 
 posed to lameness when ridden at a quick 
 pace on hard roads, and can rarely carry 
 more than very light weights. 
 
38 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 On the form and action of good saddle-horses. 
 
 A good hack has become so rare in this 
 country that few people are practically ac- 
 quainted with one ; and few, in consequence, 
 have experienced the pleasure which riding 
 one affords to a competent judge of action. 
 On a horse of this class a rider does not think 
 it necessary to pick his way, even on the worst 
 roads, feeling an instinctive but correct assur- 
 ance that he is riding an animal which will not 
 fall. The fore-feet of such an one, be the pace 
 it is going what it may, are ever well forward, 
 and fall flat on the ground, while the fore-legs, 
 when in action, are sufficiently, but not too 
 much bent, while their action comes from the 
 shoulders. But the most striking characteristic 
 in these horses is the ease with which they 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 6V 
 
 move in all their paces, thus sparing the rider 
 any feeling of fatigue. Not only is the number 
 of such horses in this country become very 
 limited, but those we have usually display 
 early some of the infirmities to which their 
 race has become so subject. 
 
 We could not, under any system of manage- 
 ment, expect to produce horses capable of 
 carrying eighteen and twenty stones of weight 
 while having the agreeable action and high 
 breeding of horses that are only wanted to 
 carry much lighter weights. But once able to 
 produce a great number of saddle-horses full 
 of good blood, and yet able to carry fourteen 
 stones of weight in the best manner, and we 
 shall have no difficulty in producing, by the 
 aid of a cross with a lower, but stronger breed 
 of horses, the finest cavalry horses in the 
 world. 
 
 It is not necessary to a good cavalry horse 
 to have the best class of shoulders, but these 
 must be strong, and the fore-feet not so far 
 back as to make the horse ■' stand over," as it 
 is called, like a cart-horse. A good cavalry 
 horse must join, to great physical power, suf- 
 ficient breeding to render him active and en- 
 
40 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 during under long marches, and with the heavy 
 weight of a fully equipped soldier on his back. 
 What is most essential to a cavalry horse is 
 strong loins, for without these no horse can 
 properly carry the heavy weight of a fully 
 equipped soldier. 
 
 Seeing what selection, carefully and long- 
 continued, on our turf has effected, when the 
 object in view became the single quality of 
 speed, and this in respect to a race which has 
 sprung from Arabs, we may reasonably antici- 
 pate much more important and durable results 
 from equally careful selection, when the object 
 has become a fine union of desirable qualities. 
 This change of system would be followed by a 
 loss of some speed on the turf, but what could 
 that matter to the public, or for any useful 
 purpose, seeing that the new class of horses 
 would have more endurance under severe exer- 
 tion, and more power to carry weight, while 
 gentlemen connected with the turf would win 
 and lose money with as much facility as at 
 present ? But the speed lost by our race- 
 horses would be amply made up to the public 
 by the additional speed gained by its useful 
 saddle-horses, and for this reason : in breed- 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 41 
 
 ing hunters or hacks now strong enough to 
 carry more than very light weights, we dare 
 not have recourse to much racing blood, be- 
 cause, if we did, the produce would want phy- 
 sical strength. Thus, we have scarcely any 
 saddle-horses able to carry fourteen stones 
 which are not so full of bad blood that they 
 want both speed and endurance, while our bet- 
 ter bred horses are so deficient in strength that 
 they can carry but little weight. 
 
 It is the wretched condition of our cavalry 
 which calls on Government so loudly to im- 
 prove, by its interference, the present supply 
 of our saddle-horses, but it would be desirable 
 to see a large class of the community able to 
 buy saddle-horses calculated to cany them 
 safely, and for a reasonable price. Besides 
 invalids, there is a large mass of persons in our 
 highly fictitious state of society, confined to 
 the house during the greater part of the day by 
 mental occupation, and of more or less public 
 importance. Many of these, no longer young, 
 have become somewhat heavy, and require, in 
 consequence, horses to carry them of consider- 
 able strength ; while such as are strong enough 
 to do this have become in the last degree bad, 
 
42 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 because, being full of cart-horse blood, they 
 have straight shoulders, and, what is worse, 
 their fore-feet greatly too much under them. 
 Then their low breeding makes them quickly 
 tire after trotting one or two miles, when 
 their action undergoes a change, by their be- 
 ginning to step short — next to show the rider 
 their shoes — then to trip — and, if not soon 
 pulled up, to fall. I have known several 
 persons of the class now described, whose 
 sedentary labours were of no small importance 
 to their country, whose health would have been 
 much improved if they had been able to get 
 daily exercise on horses sufficiently safe. 
 
 I have said that our hunters and hacks, not 
 now able to carry more than a light weight, have 
 less racing blood in their veins than the same 
 classes had in the recollection of many persons 
 now living. Formerly, horses when capable of 
 carrying fourteen stones of weight, were so 
 well bred as not only never to have their coats 
 clipped in winter, but never to require it ; and 
 this was the case for some years after the com- 
 mencement of this century. 
 
 Then, up to nearly the end of the last cen- 
 tury, what long journeys people made in a day ! 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 43 
 
 One gentleman told me, when I was a boy, 
 that he had often travelled from London to 
 Derby in a day on the same horse, distance 
 140 miles. This person was six feet high, with 
 broad shoulders. Where is now the English 
 horse able to cany a large man such a dis- 
 tance ? Yet, unless we disbelieve what General 
 Daumas tells us, with the express sanction of 
 other French generals, who were long in Africa, 
 this journey to Derby sinks by comparison 
 into nothing. 
 
 Should it ever please the Government of 
 this country to influence the character of our 
 race-horses in the way here recommended, we 
 cannot fail once more to possess a good supply 
 of horses, uniting sufficient speed with much 
 endurance and great physical strength. Then, 
 and then only, in breeding horses intended to 
 carry much weight, we shall not fear to give 
 them much racing blood. 
 
 Our thorough bred horses are now rarely fit 
 for riding on the road. Those which are 
 sufficiently strong are too tall for this work, 
 and their fore-legs are usually too infirm, while 
 few bend their knees enough to be safe. Those 
 which move with straight knees are called 
 
44 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 " daisy cutters," and their value for hacks is 
 thereby destroyed. 
 
 I am, however, far from admiring that action 
 which displays much bending of the knees, 
 because it is always laborious in the trot or 
 gallop, usually indicates low breeding, and 
 always an action which does not come, as it 
 should do, from the shoulders. 
 
 Let us now suppose that sufficiently liberal 
 bounties have been granted to our turf, and 
 the old tasks in consequence resumed upon 
 it ; that a sound, compact, and vigorous race 
 of horses is the result, and that in consequence 
 our farmers are able to breed good, instead of, 
 as at present, bad horses. The price of good 
 ones would then soon fall, while our farmers 
 would yet be better remunerated ; because 
 where they now breed one good saddle-horse, 
 they would then breed many, and at much less 
 expense. 
 
 Good saddle-horses have long been so scarce 
 with us, that few people know the form of 
 one. Like good pictures, fine forms are best 
 understood where they most abound, it being 
 vain to reason with people upon forms of 
 either art or nature which they have never 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 45 
 
 seen. To understand, however, the best form 
 for a saddle-horse, we must not only often see 
 it, but become practically acquainted with the 
 result by frequently riding well-formed horses. 
 
 Thus few people are now found amongst us 
 who know what constitutes good shoulders in 
 a horse ; persons of experience asserting they 
 should be fine, meaning by this lean at the 
 withers. It is however certain that a young 
 horse's shoulders that is intended to carry 
 more than a very light weight can hardly be 
 too thick at that place, provided they are not 
 thick at the points or lower ends, while in- 
 clining at their tops well back, leaving the 
 greatest obtainable space between the end of 
 the mane and the pummel of the saddle. 
 There is a certain cross bone which con- 
 nects the lower end of the shoulder blades 
 with the animal's fore-legs, which very mate- 
 rially affects action. When this is long it 
 throws the fore-legs too much back, making 
 the animal stand over like a cart-horse ; such 
 a horse, when at all tired, is pretty sure to 
 fall. 1 am here stating Avhat is A B C to a 
 good judge, but I write for the many. 
 
 The shoulders hero recommended, however, 
 
46 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 only contribute to good action, they do not 
 secure it ; good hind-leg action being quite as 
 important as good fore-leg action. The hock- 
 joints should bend well when in action, bring- 
 ing the hind-feet well forward. All superior 
 horses, whether racers, hunters, hacks, or 
 harness horses, are eminently characterised by 
 fine hind-leg action. Be the shoulders ever 
 so good, unless the action of the hind-legs be 
 also good, a horse is not safe while its paces 
 are uneasy to its rider, and this because the 
 action of the two sets of legs are not properly 
 balanced. Such a horse is unsafe, and makes 
 his rider, if a judge, feel that he is so ; but if 
 the animal's hind and fore-leg action be pro- 
 perly balanced, the rider feels that his horse 
 cannot come down ; and he seems, in this case, 
 to use a dealer's phrase, to be always " riding 
 up hill," while under opposite circumstances 
 he seems to be always " riding down hill." 
 
 Much importance is assigned, and this by 
 judges, to great length between the hips and 
 the hocks. This form, however, carried to the 
 extent it is amongst our race-horses, is wholly 
 factitious, and the pure result of long-con- 
 tinued selection for speed, as exhibited in 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 47 
 
 that highly factitious animal the greyhound. 
 I am old enough to remember when this form 
 in our race-horses was much less developed 
 than it is at present; and if we may judge of 
 the older race-horses by their portraits, this 
 form, as now seen, was unknown to them. 
 For a hack this form is uncalled for, and 
 would soon disappear on our turf if the old 
 tasks were renewed. In now, however, select- 
 ing a hunter, it may be right to choose one 
 with this form, because it proves that the 
 animal has much good blood in his veins, and 
 that he is in consequence speedy. But our 
 hunters had not formerly this shape, and did 
 not require it. Some say that the hunters of 
 the last century would not have been speedy 
 enough for modern fox-hounds, but this is 
 assertion only, and opposed to two important 
 facts. The first of these is, that the speed of 
 modern fox-hounds was given to their race in 
 the last century by Mr. Meynell, and no one 
 pretends that our horses in his time could not 
 keep up with his hounds. Our hunters had 
 not their present form until some years after 
 the commencement of the present century, 
 while nearly all our fox-hounds had before 
 
48 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 that become very speedy, but not too speedy 
 for the horses of that period. 
 
 The second fact is one to which I can speak, 
 namely, that our hunters very early in this 
 century, and before they became so long from 
 the hips to the hock, scould keep up with our 
 stag-hounds, while these have even gone much 
 faster than our fox-hounds, because they have 
 to work on a stronger scent. But I have 
 shown that our hunters, formerly able to carry 
 much weight, had more racing blood in their 
 veins than those of the present day. 
 
 This unnaturally wide space between the 
 hips and his hocks is inconvenient from fre- 
 quently producing " over-reach." 
 
 A horse's hips should be wide and his loins 
 highly muscular, but the lower end of his 
 shoulders should be light. 
 
 The chest of a horse of the first class can- 
 not be too protuberant, but may be too wide 
 for speed. The chest, however, cannot be 
 too deep, or the ribs before the girths too 
 long, while the back ribs, when much speed 
 is required, should be rather short. For 
 very fine action, therefore, the shoulder-blades 
 miist be long, while they cannot be so without 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 49 
 
 inclining well back. If a horse so formed has 
 good hind-leg action he will be very valuable, 
 because this form of shoulders is, I regret to 
 say, now scarcely to be found amongst our 
 saddle-horses, in the stronger portion of which 
 the girths are only kept from slipping away 
 forward by the animal's fore-legs ; making the 
 rider sit almost on the withers rather than on 
 the back of his horse. 
 
 Unless the space which intervenes between 
 the end of the mane and the punnnel of the 
 saddle be thick in a young horse, it becomes 
 too thin, and consequently weak when the 
 animal arrives at its prime. 
 
 The neck of a saddle-horse of the first class 
 is never very fleshy or coarse until the animal 
 becomes old. The only good shape for useful 
 purposes now to be found in our race-horses is 
 that of their hocks. Sickle hocks, as they are 
 called, so frequent in other breeds, will not 
 stand racing, though they frequently remain 
 sound when less speed is required. But this 
 form should be avoided. 
 
 The best height for horses intended for 
 hacks of the first class ranges from 14 h. 3 in. 
 to 15 h. *2 in. A horse 15 h. 3 in. may be a 
 
 E 
 
50 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 useful saddle-horse for several purposes, but 
 not so good for a hack as one of lower stature ; 
 and for these reasons : a tall horse does not 
 move — all other things being equal — with the 
 ease and lightness of one of lower stature, 
 and, in consequence, wears its legs more, and 
 fatigues more its rider. 
 
 In thus comparing horses of different statures, 
 I have been supposing them equally well-bred, 
 and equally well-formed, but nearly all our 
 tall horses«are tall now only because they have 
 long legs, which are objectionable ; first, be- 
 cause they don't wear well ; secondly, because 
 always allied with a shallow body. These 
 horses do well enough for the London streets, 
 where a showy appearance is the object in 
 view, but they are not calculated for hard work, 
 and are peculiarly unfitted for a hilly country. 
 
 Fifteen hands three inches is not too high for 
 heavy cavalry horses, provided it be attained by 
 a deep body instead of long legs. Plorses really 
 tall do not appear so when well-formed. We 
 see this exemplified in a tall and well -formed 
 man, who never appears so tall as one of like 
 height who has a narrow chest and narrow 
 shoulders, who in short has a weak form. 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 51 
 
 That of our thorough-bred and nearly 
 thorough-bred horses, is at present well illus- 
 trated by the greater part of our officers' chargers. 
 If one of these had appeared at the commence- 
 ment of this century its form would have excited 
 universal surprise. Now the downward course 
 of our horses has so long been going on as to 
 prepare people for the sight of these feeble 
 creatures. 
 
 As respects cavalry horses that have to 
 carry twenty stones of weight, not a drop of 
 our present race-horse blood should be in 
 their veins, yet they must not be cart-horses. 
 They should have the compact form obtainable 
 from Arab blood, crossed with that of a stronger 
 but lower bred race, yet superior to that of the 
 cart-horse. It is not long since they bred in 
 Ireland good hunters without recurrence to the 
 blood of our race-horse, but the Irish horse 
 they then possessed has disappeared. I have 
 much to say on obtaining a cross for our race- 
 horses that will produce animals with that 
 strength and activity required for cavalry of a 
 high class, but it is useless to do this unless 
 Government consented to influence the pro- 
 ceedings on our turf. 
 
 e 2 
 
5*2 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 Political economists tell us the supply of 
 everything should be left to the operation of 
 the general principle which they assert regu- 
 lates supply and demand, but I submit that, 
 powerful as that principle undoubtedly is, it is 
 not a general one, and that as respects many 
 objects of art the supply may remain — as re- 
 spects home production — for centuries either 
 nil or bad. Such is the case with many arti- 
 cles we are content to get from France. The 
 Swiss too have ever been our superiors in 
 making watches, and nearly all those sold now 
 in this country by those of our tradesmen who 
 call themselves watch-makers come from Swit- 
 zerland. 
 
 If it be said that breeding a sufficient supply 
 of good saddle-horses requires no skill, how 
 then are we to account for no civilized nation, 
 save our's, having ever succeeded in doing this, 
 and that we should at length have failed ? 
 
 The Polish, Hungarian, and Cossack horses 
 are very good for some purposes, but have not 
 enough physical power to carry heavy cavalry, 
 or any class of cavalry that has to act in line. 
 For this purpose a factitiously strong animal 
 is wanted, but having a sufficiency of speed 
 and endurance. 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 53 
 
 To succeed in breeding the best class of 
 saddle-horses, that practical experience which 
 is obtained by riding long distances at con- 
 siderable speed is needed. The Irish farmers 
 owed much of their former success in breeding- 
 good saddle-horses to their custom of riding- 
 after hounds. Having lost their own race of 
 well-bred horses, they are now compelled to 
 breed partly from the English race-horse, a 
 measure which has been fatal. 
 
 Returning to the general principle which we 
 are told regulates supply and demand, I must 
 remind the reader that the stock from which 
 all our best horses have descended was not 
 imported by farmers, but by gentlemen regard- 
 less of expense, yet the animals they imported 
 turned out excellent, not only for racing, but 
 for useful purposes, and this I have shown was 
 their character for a long period of time, or 
 until the old test of merit was abandoned. 
 Farmers who breed in every country the mass 
 of saddle-horses, have no time to go to Syria 
 or Africa in search of stallions, and, if they 
 had, have rarely either the capital or necessary 
 knowledge for securing success. 
 
 Supposing a farmer to leave his numerous 
 
54 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 and important affairs at home, in order to go to 
 Syria or Africa in search of a stallion, and that 
 he returns home with a good one, what must 
 then soon happen? Why unless many other 
 farmers took a similar course, our farmer must 
 soon go abroad again in search of another 
 stallion, or allow his stock to breed in and in, 
 by which it would soon become deteriorated. 
 This must be the final result unless other 
 fanners, following this man's example, secured 
 for their country a sufficient supply of foreign 
 stallions. It is enough, however, to say that 
 no farmers in any country have ever yet taken 
 such a course. 
 
 If, then, our saddle-horses have generally 
 become bad, and our cavalry is in consequence 
 ill-mounted, this is one of those cases in which 
 the principle which usually regulates supply 
 and demand fails, and we must look either to 
 direct interference on the part of Government, 
 or to some special plan suited to this ex- 
 ceptionable case. 
 
 The reader will observe that I have been 
 directing his attention chiefly to what con- 
 stitutes the first class of saddle-horses, but we 
 cannot under any system expect to mount our 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 55 
 
 cavalry on this class. A cavalry soldier fully 
 equipped for service requires an amount of 
 physical strength in his horse incompatible 
 with much speed, or highly agreeable action. 
 All that can be expected in cavalry horses 
 that have to act in line, and to do also the 
 duty of light troops, is much strength, com- 
 bined with sufficient activity and endurance, 
 and such can only be obtained from a cross 
 between the Arab and a stronger but inferior 
 race. 
 
 Government may not now think itself called 
 on to take any step for improving the breed of 
 our saddle-horses ; but a day will arrive when 
 the matter will be forced on its attention, though 
 not, I fear, should war in the meantime arrive, 
 till the lives of many brave soldiers have been 
 sacrificed. 
 
 Whenever that time shall arrive no country 
 at all likely to possess a good breed of Arab 
 horses should be left unvisited. The impres- 
 sion now generally is that Syria has better 
 horses than any other portion of the East; 
 but after reading attentively Daumas' work on 
 the horses of Africa, I recommend the im- 
 portation of some of the best of those. Their 
 
56 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 exportation was effectually prevented under Ab- 
 del-Kader, but the French Government would 
 probably not refuse us its assistance in en- 
 deavouring to purchase horses in that country. 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 57 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 On the close analogy between the principles which should guide 
 us in breeding saddle-horses, and those by which we have so 
 long succeeded in breeding other domesticated animals. 
 
 In breeding other domesticated animals it 
 has very long been the practice to have re- 
 course to fresh blood when the natural, as well 
 as some of the acquired qualities of those 
 animals have become deteriorated. 
 
 The first of these cases I propose to consider 
 is that of our fox-hounds, which, not being 
 assisted, like foreign hounds, by fire-arms, 
 have to kill their game by their own exer- 
 tion. They require a strong sense of smell, 
 speed, and endurance. If the master of 
 such hounds were to remain quiescent when 
 they begin to fall off in any or these qualities, 
 they would soon cease to kill foxes, be- 
 cause these being wild animals, as a race 
 
58 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 their physical powers do not vary so long as 
 they have to obtain their food in the usual 
 manner. In a district factitiously full of game 
 foxes have less endurance than in one where 
 they are obliged to travel daily some distance 
 after food; and in most of our hunting districts 
 foxes are compelled to make this exertion, and 
 by it they maintain their speed and great 
 natural endurance. As these strong foxes are 
 what our hounds have usually to hunt, these 
 cannot afford to lose any portion of their speed 
 or endurance. When those qualities begin 
 to deteriorate in a pack of hounds, the master 
 of it can only meet this by having recourse to 
 fresh blood, to that of a pack of hounds which 
 has been better managed than his own, as he 
 cannot render the killing of foxes less difficult 
 when the powers of his hounds are become 
 diminished. 
 
 The work of a fox-hound is severe, requir- 
 ing speed, endurance, a particular form of 
 foot, and sloping shoulders, and in the absence 
 of this form they soon become lame. 
 
 Thus our fox-hounds are not bred in refer- 
 ence to one quality, but to four ; namely, 
 form, speed, endurance, and fine sense of 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 59 
 
 smell. The standard by which these qualities 
 are measured, being a fixed one, our fox- 
 hounds are not allowed to deteriorate. 
 
 How different is the situation of those 
 who breed our race-horses. Having no fixed 
 standard by which to test the physical powers 
 of their horses, they have gradually lowered 
 that they so long maintained, as the power of 
 their horses diminished. 
 
 If speed alone had been the object of those 
 who breed our fox-hounds, it would have led 
 to breeding in and in, as on our turf, and thus 
 endurance, constitutional vigour, and that form 
 which is the result of vigour, would have been 
 lost. 
 
 The history of our pointers is also signifi- 
 cant. We have succeeded in giving them the 
 factitious quality of pointing game, instead of 
 rushing on it, under their natural instinct; 
 but these dogs after a time deteriorate ; point- 
 ing all sorts of animals, losing their speed and 
 their spirit. It becomes then necessary to cross 
 them either with other pointers not yet de- 
 teriorated, or with fox-hounds whose integrity 
 of character has been better maintained. 
 
 The history of the deer-hound is equally 
 
60 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 instructive. This animal is not assisted in the 
 chase by the sense of smell, but depends wholly 
 on its speed and courage, this last quality 
 being soon lost unless the race be occasionally 
 crossed with that of the bull-dog. The result 
 of the first cross makes the offspring too slow, 
 but one cross back with the grey-hound gives 
 them sufficient speed without too much lower- 
 ing the spirit they derived from the bull- 
 dog. 
 
 The course taken with the deer-hound has 
 been produced, to a certain extent, with grey- 
 hounds, which are only required to kill hares. 
 These dogs, after a time, lose their courage, 
 and soon give up the chace when it ceases to 
 be easy. When this happens they are crossed 
 with a more vigorous race of greyhounds, and 
 sometimes with the bull-dog. The standard 
 by which the power of each of these animals is 
 measured is a fixed one, and when that power 
 declines the remedy had recourse to is ever 
 fresh blood. 
 
 The necessity, after a time, of having re- 
 course to this, when a race of animals under 
 domestication has been too far removed from 
 one of nature, is well illustrated by Mr. Bake- 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 61 
 
 well's new Leicester sheep, so celebrated for 
 their extraordinary disposition to fatten, and 
 for their long wool. The pure breed of those 
 sheep soon became very delicate, and I am 
 confident that not one is now to be found in 
 the full integrity of Mr. Bakewell's blood. 
 Crossed, as they have been, by other flocks of 
 Leicesters, having less constitutional delicacy, 
 they rarely drop more than one lamb each, and 
 require a rich pasturage. 
 
 The history, however, of our cattle is yet 
 more instructive than that of any other of our 
 domesticated animals which have been much 
 withdrawn from a state of nature, or from one 
 little removed from it. Such of our breeds of 
 cattle as have endured for any considerable 
 time, have been always reared, and continue 
 to be reared, on poor or indifferent pasturage. 
 
 In our rich pasture districts, where our best 
 cheese is made, the cattle are soon forced up 
 to a large and unnatural size, and in conse- 
 quence lose, after a time, so much of their con- 
 stitutional vigour as to require frequent renova- 
 tion from fresh blood, from that of cattle which 
 remain in a more natural state. I do not 
 blame the course thus taken with the cattle in 
 
62 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 our dairy districts, as they have been made by 
 rich food to yield much more milk. Cows in 
 a state little removed from one of nature, 
 namely, those still bred on poor soils, yield 
 much less milk than those which inhabit more 
 fertile districts. In a state of nature, or in one 
 little removed from it, the udder and milk 
 veins of the cow are little developed compared 
 with those of cows which have been kept on 
 rich pastures, and under a system of continued 
 selection for their milking qualities. A race 
 of large dairy cattle, while not called upon to 
 make any physical exertion, or submit to any 
 privations, may continue for many years to 
 answer the object of the farmer, if breeding 
 too much in and in be avoided. 
 
 The buildings required by dairy cattle dur- 
 ing winter are expensive, and large cows are, 
 therefore, more economically housed than small 
 ones. The history, however, of these enlarged 
 cattle, shows that their existence as a race is 
 ephemeral, while that of the smaller cattle which 
 occupies poorer districts of land, there is every 
 reason to believe has endured for ages. In 
 our rich dairy counties, where the pasturage is 
 rich, the breeds of cattle which occupy them 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 63 
 
 have been of late years frequently changed, 
 either wholly or partially, by a cross with 
 cattle in a more natural state, and so far as 
 we are acquainted with the facts resulting from 
 this change, with excellent results. 
 
 The old short horns, which thirty years ago 
 came from Yorkshire in such crowds to London 
 to supply it with milk, had become coarse, long- 
 legged, ill-shapen, and delicate. They re- 
 quired expensive food and fattened slowly, 
 yielding a large quantity of milk, but little 
 either of curd or butter. This race has been 
 renovated within a few years by a cross with 
 a hardier breed, that is, with one in a more 
 natural condition, and the produce is known 
 under the name of the " new short horns." 
 This race is a great improvement upon the old 
 one, and has spread over all our dairy counties, 
 displacing the race of long horns which forty 
 years ago occupied those districts. The long 
 horns, as a race, had little antiquity to 
 boast of, for Lisle, who wrote towards the end 
 of the 17th century, says, "that in his time 
 the dairy counties of York, Derby, Stafford, 
 and Lancashire, were occupied with black 
 cattle having wide spreading horns." This 
 
64 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 race, we may suppose, continued for some time 
 after the death of Lisle. The county of Glou- 
 cester is stated to have had a distinct breed of 
 cattle, which was changed about the middle of 
 the last century for the long horns, and these 
 having since given way to the new short horns. 
 Thus, all our dairy districts distinguished for 
 rich pasturage, have been compelled, at short 
 periods, to change entirely their breeds of dairy 
 cattle, by having recourse to such as were in a 
 more natural condition. 
 
 The long horns were relinquished in our dairy 
 districts because they had ceased to fatten well. 
 
 Dairy fanners are liable to great losses from 
 their cows miscarrying ; and when this once 
 begins in a cow-house, it extends rapidly, and 
 subjecting the farmer to great losses, unless his 
 cows after this fatten kindly. Thus, while 
 housing during winter is necessary for large 
 milking cows, it is attended with this very 
 serious drawback. The little disposition to 
 fatten after miscarriage of the old long horns, 
 led to the introduction throughout our dairy 
 counties of the improved short horns, a hardier 
 race, formed by a cross with the Scotch cattle. 
 
 As milking cows require to be housed dur- 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 65 
 
 ing winter, and as large ones, besides yielding 
 a greater supply of milk, are more economically 
 housed than small ones, there is no objection to 
 the course taken by our dairy farmers, consider- 
 ing how easily, when their cattle become too de- 
 licate, their vigour can be renewed by a cross 
 with breeds in a more natural condition. 
 
 The small Suffolk polled cows maintain their 
 ground because reared on a poor pasturage, 
 for which they are suitable, but they are un- 
 fitted for a rich one 
 
 The history of our cattle intended for the 
 butcher is very different. There is every 
 reason to suppose that nearly all the existing 
 breeds have lasted in their present form for 
 ages. The most numerous are the Scotch, 
 which are in a state very little removed from 
 one of nature, exhibiting excellent forms, and 
 yielding unrivalled beef. 
 
 It is an unfailing characteristic of wild 
 animals to die under severe hardships, or 
 wholly to recover, those of the same race 
 never exhibiting the essential differences of 
 form displayed by domesticated animals kept 
 in a very factitious state, some exhibiting long, 
 while others display short, backs — some long 
 
 F 
 
66 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 legs, and others short ones — some strong loins, 
 and others weak ones. 
 
 Thus, most of the Scotch cattle being in a 
 state little removed from one of nature, dis- 
 play, when of the same race, a striking unifor- 
 mity of shape. This, however, is not the cha- 
 racteristic of cattle kept on rich pasturage and 
 housed during the winter months, as in our 
 dairy counties. 
 
 The Welsh cattle are inferior to the Scotch, 
 but are well fitted for districts where the pas- 
 turage is poor. 
 
 The Devons and Herefords are supposed to 
 be indigenous. The oxen of these races ar- 
 rive at a considerable size, and are active in 
 the yoke. The Hereford oxen are larger than 
 the Devon, but are equally active in the yoke. 
 These are probably the two best breeds of 
 cattle in the world for the purposes of working 
 in the yoke, and yielding a large supply of 
 excellent food. 
 
 How then does it happen, that without re- 
 curring to fresh blood, or to a cross, the oxen 
 of these two races arrive at a large size, while 
 continuing hardy, and active in the yoke ? 
 The solution of these apparently incompatible 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 67 
 
 facts is found in the judicious practice of keep- 
 ing down the stature of the parents — that is of 
 the bulls and cows, as is shown in the follow- 
 ing extract from a letter of the late Mr. Knight, 
 of Herefordshire, to the Board of Agriculture, 
 in which that able physiologist alludes to the 
 great difference between the size of the coivs 
 and oxen of that county. He appears in 
 this publication to take just pride in the 
 oxen, but he seems ashamed of the cows. 
 He thus writes : — " The Herefordshire breeders 
 seem unanimously agreed that a very large 
 cow, however well-formed and perfect in every 
 other respect, rarely produces a good ox ; and 
 they, therefore, justly disregard the weight and 
 intrinsic value of their cows, reckoning those 
 the best which experience has taught them are 
 best calculated to produce good oxen." Thus, 
 it follows, that the Herefordshire ox is a very 
 superior animal to the cow, often attaining 
 double the weight. I do not, however, admit 
 but that this county can show as beautiful 
 cows as any in the island, but it is the ox on 
 which it prides itself, and stands, I am con- 
 fident, without a rival. 
 
 If so able a man as Mr. Knight could over- 
 
 F 2 
 
68 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 look the nature of the necessity which obliges 
 the Herefordshire farmers to maintain this 
 great distinction between the size of their cows 
 and that of their oxen, we cannot wonder at 
 finding this principle so generally disregarded. 
 
 The author of the "Farmer's Series" speaks 
 in the same sense of the Hereford cows and 
 oxen. 
 
 I think it impossible for any thinking man, 
 after reading this account of our cattle, not to 
 be struck by the affinity it displays between 
 the principles which should guide us in the 
 management of both horses and cattle. 
 
 The history of the last points out how im- 
 possible it is to withdraw them from a state of 
 nature, so as to increase greatly their size with- 
 out reducing their constitutional vigour. It 
 shows how this difficulty has been successfully 
 met by those who breed our Devon and Here- 
 fordshire cattle, keeping down the size of the 
 parents of their large oxen. 
 
 We cannot reflect on these facts without 
 coming to the conclusion that when any domes- 
 ticated animals have been long much removed 
 from a state of nature, and have in consequence 
 lost some of their natural qualities, a cross 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 69 
 
 with animals of the same race, which have 
 been less removed from a state of nature, is 
 the only remedy. These facts prove that no 
 domesticated race of animals whose natural 
 habits have been much changed by human 
 interference, long escapes deterioration in re- 
 spect to some of its natural qualities, unless 
 renovated by fresh blood. 
 
 Seeing, then, the course taken with our 
 cattle, we cannot doubt that our farmers would 
 pursue the same course with our saddle-horses 
 if they could. 
 
 We have no power over the qualities given 
 by nature to animals, save that which results 
 from long-continued selection of individuals 
 for propagating their race, which possess, in a 
 pre-eminent degree, the qualities we want. 
 Horses of the same race are not equally 
 speedy, or equally enduring. If, then, the 
 object of the breeding of saddle-horses be 
 speed alone, we select for that one quality ; 
 but if the object of the breeder be en- 
 durance as well as speed, he must breed 
 from animals that possess that union of 
 qualities. It is the same in cows; such as 
 naturally afford more milk than others we 
 
70 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 breed from, when milk is our object, but when 
 beef is our object we select those individuals 
 for breeding which will be soonest fat ; such, 
 in short, as make the greatest return for the 
 food they have consumed. When we require 
 in cattle activity in the yoke, as well as a 
 strong disposition to fatten, we select those 
 individuals to breed from which possess the 
 best union of these two qualities. 
 
 One principle of breeding has become 
 well understood by those who breed either 
 cattle or sheep, which is carefully to avoid 
 breeding in and in. Happy would it have 
 been for mankind had this principle been 
 better kept in view in propagating the human 
 race. 
 
 A paper published some years ago by the 
 late Mr. Cline having exercised a pernicious 
 influence, it is necessary here to refer to it. 
 He wished to show what he considered to be 
 the advantage obtainable by breeding from 
 large females. He had horses and cattle 
 principally in view, and thus writes : — " The 
 proper method of improving the form of animals 
 consists in selecting a well-formed female pro- 
 portionably larger than the male. The im- 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 71 
 
 provement depends on this principle, that the 
 power of the female to supply her offspring 
 with nourishment is in proportion to her size, 
 and to the power of nourishing herself from 
 the excellence of the constitution. 
 
 " The size of the foetus is generally in pro- 
 portion to that of the male parent, and there- 
 fore when the female parent is proportionably 
 small the quantity of nourishment is deficient, 
 and her offspring has all the disproportions of 
 a starveling. But when the female, from her 
 size and good constitution, is more than ade- 
 quate to the nourishment of a foetus of a 
 smaller male than herself, the growth must be 
 proportionably greater. The larger female has 
 also a greater quantity of milk, and her off- 
 spring is more abundantly supplied with 
 nourishment." 
 
 There can be no doubt that in breeding 
 animals of any kind the females should be 
 well formed, and have good constitutions ; but 
 on what facts Mr. Cline grounds his assertion 
 that the females for breeding should be larger 
 than the males, he does not say, while all the 
 facts bearing on this subject lead to an oppo- 
 
7*2 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 site conclusion. No cattle are probably so 
 hardy as the Scotch ; none have more vigour, 
 none are better formed, and few so well ; yet 
 they yield little milk, but this of such good 
 quality that the offspring of those cows are 
 well nourished, yet the cows are not " in 
 proportion larger than the males." 
 
 Then I have showed on good authority how 
 careful are the breeders of our Hereford and 
 Devon cattle to keep down the size of their 
 cows, and that the result of their doing so is 
 that the oxen of this race are the finest in the 
 world, being equally well constituted for the 
 yoke and for the butcher. These cows do not 
 yield much milk, but the quality is excellent ; 
 and it is this and not the quantity of milk 
 which is important to the offspring. 
 
 It is well known to every man practically 
 acquainted with the subject, that the large cows 
 kept in our dairy counties are much less hardy 
 than the Scotch, the Welch, the Devons, or 
 the Herefords ; but the former yield much 
 more milk, which is the object of the dairy 
 farmer to obtain. 
 
 Then what are more vigorous than the mares 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 73 
 
 yet found in a state of nature, or in one 
 but little removed from it? When one of 
 these is put to a large horse is the produce 
 ill nourished ? is it a starveling ? No ; the 
 only fear of a judicious and experienced 
 breeder in this case is, that the produce of this 
 cross, when well fed, after being weaned, may 
 turn out too large. But when I speak of small 
 cows and small mares, let me not be supposed 
 to refer to weedy or weak females, having 
 shallow bodies and weak loins. I allude only 
 to well-formed, strong, and compact mares, 
 showing by their forms that they have vigorous 
 constitutions. I further submit that in no race 
 of animals in a state of nature, or nearly so, 
 are the females larger than the males. 
 
 As respects the human race, we do not find 
 that large women produce the finest offspring. 
 On the contrary, such females have usually 
 less vigorous constitutions than smaller ones, 
 when these have well-proportioned forms. It 
 is equally well known that very tall men are 
 not so enduring under exertion, or so likely to 
 live to a great age as smaller men. 
 
 If, in breeding horses, we were to select mares 
 
74 DETERIORATED CONDITION OF 
 
 of larger stature proportionably than the stal- 
 lions, we should invert the clearest order of na- 
 ture, for naturally females are smaller than the 
 males. 
 
 It is certain, that in enlarging the na- 
 tural size of both cattle and horses, we do 
 not pari passu increase the natural amount of 
 nervous, or, if I may use the expression, vital 
 power. Dr. Holland, in his work on Mental 
 Physiology, says in the chapter entitled, " In- 
 quiry into the Nervous System," " Other 
 arguments, in addition, might be used to sanc- 
 tion the idea of quantity in the nervous power 
 as expressed by its deficiency. May we not 
 under this view find the explanation of the 
 great exhaustion (sometimes involving danger- 
 ous results) which follows sudden or excessive 
 growth of the body ? regarding such debility 
 as the effect of disproportion between the size 
 of the frame, and the amount of nervous force 
 ministering to its functions." On this passage 
 Dr. Holland adds the following note : — " In 
 such cases, however, we are bound to advert 
 also to the want of proportionate growth in the 
 muscular structure of the heart, and its conse- 
 
OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 75 
 
 quent inability to carry on an active and 
 healthy circulation through a vascular system 
 thus unduly extended. I have seen some very 
 striking examples of this disproportion ; and 
 it is a point in pathology meriting more atten- 
 tion than it has received." 
 
 How many facts illustrate this doctrine 
 in respect to both men and horses. Per- 
 sons of experience in horses which have to 
 work hard daily, either in harness or in the 
 saddle, are agreed on the unfitness of large 
 horses for severe work. A large soldier may 
 beat down one of much lower stature, but in 
 making long marches, and submitting to priva- 
 tions the smaller men beat the larger. It is 
 the same in horses. Heavy dragoon soldiers 
 require horses having great physical power, 
 but these horses cannot compete with the light 
 Cossack and Hungarian horses in bearing long 
 marches and privations, but these in the actual 
 charge have not sufficient weight to oppose 
 horses of greater physical power. Here then, 
 again, we see the wisdom of those who breed 
 our fine Hereford and Devon cattle, who keep 
 down the size of their cows in order to main- 
 tain the vigour of their constitution, knowing 
 
76 CONDITION OF OUR SADDLE-HORSES. 
 
 that those of their progeny, which are not al- 
 lowed to perpetuate their race, will, under this 
 system, arrive at a large size, and this without 
 their activity in the yoke being lessened. 
 
OUR CAVALRY. 77 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Our Cavalry boos* to be tested during peace, and its discipline 
 improved. 
 
 Seeing that our cavalry horses have become 
 deteriorated since the last war, while in that 
 they displayed much delicacy and perished in 
 consequence in great numbers, we should while 
 peace continues, subject our present cavalry 
 horses to a practical test calculated to prove 
 which class can and which cannot be depended 
 on for carrying their riders fully equipped 
 through a campaign. I am glad to hear that 
 our cavalry is about to be encamped, but re- 
 gret to learn that their horses are to be covered 
 in when at the picket-post. If this expense 
 has now become necessary, what clearer evi- 
 dence is needed to show how much our horses 
 have fallen off in constitutional vigour, seeing 
 
78 OUR CAVALRY. 
 
 that till now they were always when encamped 
 tied to the picket-post in the open air, and this 
 without sustaining the smallest injury ? Surely 
 this encampment is an occasion which should 
 not be neglected for trying how our horses are 
 likely to go through a campaign with their 
 riders fully equipped for the field. The last 
 encampment in England was near Weymouth 
 in 1805, and as I was in it I am able to say 
 that, though the horses were tied to the picket- 
 post in the open air, they were in the finest 
 condition. 
 
 Advantage should be taken of the coming 
 encampment for further testing our cavalry 
 horses by marching them daily, when not 
 otherwise employed, for a month, a considerable 
 number of miles. We test our cannon and our 
 muskets before using them in war, and if this 
 be a wise precaution, it is not less so after a 
 very long peace to test our cavalry horses 
 before we enter upon war, particularly now 
 when they appear much more delicate, and 
 much less able to cany the great weight of 
 fully equipped soldiers than were their prede- 
 cessors in the last war. 
 
 The number of miles to be marched each 
 
OUR CAVALRY. 79 
 
 day in the trial here recommended should be 
 rather more than is likely to be required in a 
 campaign, seeing that our horses at home are 
 better fed than in a campaign. 
 
 This trial would serve to clear up another 
 point now little understood yet of great impor- 
 tance — that of ascertaining the best means of 
 preventing or greatly diminishing the serious 
 evil of sore backs amongst the horses by un- 
 equal pressure of the saddle. 
 
 General Cathcart, when in Canada, in order 
 to prevent this had a quarter blanket placed 
 under the saddles of his regiment, and this 
 with very good effect ; but on that regiment 
 coming home the blanket was ordered to be 
 discontinued on the sole ground of unsightliness 
 without any trial being made of it. This is to 
 be regretted, seeing who was the author of that 
 system, and that it had answered in Canada, 
 while we remain, down to the present day, 
 without any plan for preventing our horses' 
 backs becoming sore when having to travel for 
 only a few consecutive days. 
 
 The Life Guards, in Spain, had a large 
 portion of their men dismounted while only 
 marching up the country to join our army, by 
 
80 OUR CAVALRY. 
 
 the horses' backs becoming sore ; and a few 
 years afterwards the 1st Life Guards in 
 marching the short distance between London 
 and Nottingham, suffered much, with the ex- 
 ception of one troop, by their horses' backs 
 becoming sore. The troop which escaped this 
 malady did so from unusual care being exer- 
 cised by its captain, a proof that this subject 
 requires elucidation by a trial of marching 
 under different plans of management. Looking 
 at the enormous expense of this force, no pains 
 should be spared calculated to prevent this 
 evil. 
 
 By the trial here recommended— if pro- 
 perly carried out — important knowledge would 
 be acquired of the causes which produce sore 
 backs, as well as the best means of either 
 wholly getting rid of that evil, or diminishing 
 it. 
 
 But how different would be now our situa- 
 tion if a few years ago Government had tried 
 some crosses with well selected Arab horses 
 to improve our cavalry. If that experiment 
 had been made, even on a very small scale, we 
 should by trying now the produce against our 
 present horses at the picket-post, and by long 
 
OUR CAVALRY. 81 
 
 daily marches have acquired a body of facts of 
 much importance to our army. 
 
 The question of arming the front rank men 
 in our dragoon regiments with lances deserves 
 attention. It might be well to appoint a 
 military commission to investigate the subject, 
 but be the opinion of such a body what it might, 
 a partial trial of this system should be directly 
 adopted. 
 
 The great improvements effected of late 
 years in the Continental cavalry — particularly 
 in that of France — is an additional call upon 
 us to examine attentively the present state of 
 our own. 
 
 Our cavalry is brave, but becomes in action 
 unmanageable. This is a serious fault, and led 
 at Waterloo to the almost entire destruction of 
 our heavy cavalry. This defect can only be 
 remedied by an improved system of discipline. 
 For this purpose much more attention should 
 be paid to troop drills. 
 
 The discipline of our cavalry regiments 
 should cease to be, as at present, dependent 
 wholly on the officers commanding regiments, 
 assisted by the adjutant and riding-master. By 
 calling on the captains to drill their troops, a 
 
8*2 OUR CAVALRY. 
 
 spirit of emulation would spring up amongst 
 those officers now unknown. The improvement 
 resulting from this system might be slow, and 
 confined, perhaps, at first, to one troop, then 
 gradually to others, while one or two might not 
 improve at all. The captains commanding 
 these last should be first encouraged to do 
 better, and reprimanded if the evil arose from 
 their want of will. From whatever cause the 
 inferior discipline of a troop might arise, it 
 must not be allowed to continue, though it 
 should become necessary for its captain to 
 leave a service for which he had shown himself 
 unfit. There would be no cruelty in this when 
 we reflect on the fatal consequences which so 
 often result when cavalry display a want of 
 discipline in action. 
 
 The dragoons, when exercised in troop drills, 
 should move with very wide intervals between 
 each horse. Persons who understand riding, 
 and have seen much of our riding-schools, know 
 that they never turn out a good horseman ; and 
 the principal reason for this is, the confined 
 space of a school. But troops are in a school 
 when out of doors, unless made to move with 
 wide intervals. Dragoons cannot maintain 
 
OUR CAVALRY. 83 
 
 accurately proper intervals between each other 
 until they have acquired a skill in horseman- 
 ship not obtainable under the present system. 
 
 These drills, if well carried out, would show 
 which of the captains of troops knew how to 
 command them, and this would not be lost on 
 the soldiers, who estimate very accurately the 
 amount of military knowledge their officers 
 possess. This knowledge on the part of the 
 men leads in cavalry to much good, or to great 
 mischief, according as the officers do, or do not 
 know their duties. When the men have con- 
 fidence in the knowledge of their officers, they 
 yield them ready obedience in any situation, 
 but not so when the officers do not merit their 
 confidence. 
 
 It is of little use to bring a whole regiment of 
 cavalry together for a field-day, until they 
 have been prepared for it by well conducted 
 troop drills. 
 
 The junior field officers, as well as two or 
 three of the older captains in every cavalry 
 regiment, should each be occasionally allowed, 
 under the eye of the officer commanding the 
 regiment, to put it through some movements. 
 After this practice had been established, the 
 
 g 2 
 
84 OUR CAVALRY. 
 
 inspector-general should sometimes call out 
 one of these officers, to put his regiment 
 through some movements; and if this officer 
 failed to do this properly, he should be allowed 
 a reasonable time for improvement; after 
 which, if he still failed to perform this very 
 easy task with perfect facility, he should be 
 reported by the inspector-general to the Horse 
 Guards, whose painful but indispensable duty 
 it would be to remove such officer from the 
 service. This may seem harsh, but not so when 
 it is recollected how many valuable lives may 
 be sacrificed, and how many occasions for 
 snatching an advantage lost, when an officer 
 commanding a cavalry regiment cannot perform 
 his duty properly when before an enemy. 
 
 It is very desirable to have the older officers 
 in a cavalry regiment well looked after by the 
 inspector-general, who, from his rank, and 
 other circumstances, would have more influ- 
 ence over such officers than the lieutenant- 
 colonel, who, living on a more or less intimate 
 footing with them, is less disposed to exercise 
 that strictness which the interests of the service 
 require. While living in social intercourse with 
 a corps of officers, it is very difficult for the 
 
OUR CAVALRY. 85 
 
 commanding officer to be sufficiently strict, 
 while this duty is very easy of performance to 
 the inspector- general of such force. When 
 this person calls on a junior officer to put 
 his regiment through some movements, these 
 should be named by him, as little instruction 
 would be obtained by these officers putting 
 their regiments through movements before a 
 reviewing or inspecting general which they 
 had been previously practising for the occasion. 
 
 The same principle should be extended to 
 every inspection of a regiment, whoever may 
 be in the command of it ; for after a cavalry 
 regiment has been properly instructed, first in 
 the riding- school, and afterwards in troop 
 drills, it ought to be able to perform well any 
 movements that could be required from it 
 without a previous preparation. 
 
 When an officer at the head of a regiment 
 of cavalry cannot act rapidly, or on the spur of 
 the moment, before an enemy, he may wholly 
 lose a fine opportunity for striking an important 
 blow. 
 
 It is then injurious to allow the officers who 
 command our cavalry regiments to prepare 
 themselves for a reviewing, or inspecting 
 
86 OUR CAVALRY. 
 
 general, by performing before him movements 
 previously practised expressly for the occasion. 
 If an officer commanding a cavalry regiment 
 require more than a momentary glance at an 
 enemy for attacking him, he is not fit for that 
 arm of the service. 
 
 Our cavalry regiments should not on their 
 field days be allowed to dwell so much as they 
 usually do between their movements. Two of 
 these should be made in rapid succession, in 
 order to accustom the non-commissioned offi- 
 cers to take up the new lines rapidly. When 
 the commanding officer on a field-day dwells 
 long between every movement, the attention of 
 both officers and men becomes wearied. If a 
 cavalry regiment cannot perform its move- 
 ments rapidly, without getting into more or 
 less of confusion, either its troop or its regi- 
 mental drills have been neglected. When a 
 general then arrives before a cavalry regiment 
 to review it, he should name the movements he 
 wishes to have performed, instead of being 
 content to accept those which had been pre- 
 viously practised for the occasion. 
 
 In the course of the last war I knew some 
 junior field officers of cavalry regiments, who, 
 
OUR CAVALRY. 87 
 
 though of long standing in the service, could 
 not put their regiments through a common 
 field-day without the continual aid of the adju- 
 tants. Had this occurred in battle the result 
 would have been serious. Such officers should 
 have been dismissed, or made to learn their 
 duty. 
 
 A thoroughly well instructed, and well 
 mounted cavalry regiment, may be compared 
 to a fine frigate with a highly disciplined crew. 
 
 A cavalry officer in the command of a regi- 
 ment may on service greatly distinguish him- 
 self, as may a captain in command only of a 
 squadron when this happens to be detached. 
 
 There are still men in our Household Cavalry 
 much too heavy for service. The horses re- 
 quired to carry them are necessarily too low- 
 bred and too slow. They are, in consequence, 
 when in a column on its march, like to slow 
 sailing ships, which delay the progress of a 
 whole fleet. The speed of a cavalry regiment 
 is in all its movements diminished, by the slow 
 horses which cany the heaviest men. These 
 
88 OUR CAVALRY. 
 
 men may be very showy, but if their limbs 
 were shorter, their chests wider, and their arms 
 stronger, they would be more effective in action, 
 while pressing less on the power of their horses. 
 
 The form of the men in our Household 
 Cavalry should resemble more that of the men 
 in our Grenadier Guards, which is for the most 
 part perfect. 
 
 We ought not to enlist or retain, even in our 
 heavy cavalry, men of more than five feet eleven 
 inches; yet, we have still men in that force, 
 particularly amongst the sergeants, who, besides 
 being very tall, are also very heavy, and too 
 much so for any horse of proper breeding to 
 carry. I doubt not, these men, and particularly 
 the sergeants, are very deserving, but actual 
 service should ever be before the eyes of our 
 military authorities. 
 
 It is the long limbs of the men in our House- 
 hold Cavalry which make them, when on foot, 
 look so tall ; but when mounted, they look less 
 tall than men formed like those in our Grena- 
 dier Guards would do if they were placed on 
 horseback; while these have broader chests, 
 and stronger arms than the very tall men now 
 to be seen in our Household Cavalry. 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 89 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INFANTRY. 
 
 A system should be established for bringing forward talented 
 officers in this force. 
 
 The case of infantry differs much from that 
 of cavalry, its movements being comparatively 
 slow, and performed by rational beings instead 
 of mere animals. An officer in a line regiment 
 of infantry has scarcely ever an opportunity, 
 till he becomes a lieutenant- colonel, and then 
 few, of distinguishing himself. The duties of 
 all other officers in that force are so simple, as 
 to be at once understood by persons of the 
 most limited capacity. From this branch of the 
 service, however, nearly all the generals are 
 obtained, and with scarcely an exception, as 
 respects such as obtain the command of armies, 
 while their success in that important situation 
 
90 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 has little relation to any knowledge they have 
 acquired of regimental duties. Even the scien- 
 tific education given to Artillery and Engineer 
 officers does not enable them to command 
 armies, unless they possess that natural genius 
 for war which education, however good, does 
 not give. 
 
 At present, in consequence of the great 
 success of our armies under the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, it seems to be a pretty general opinion 
 that our military system is good, and may be 
 relied on for ensuring the success of our arms 
 in a future war. But what is the fact ? Why 
 that, until the Duke of Wellington obtained the 
 command of our armies, they have been, from 
 the time of Marlborough, almost uniformly 
 unsuccessful, save in India, where the native 
 armies were, with hardly any exception, very 
 feeble. The immediate cause of the ill success 
 of our armies before the Duke of Wellington 
 appeared, is their having been usually placed 
 under incompetent commanders, as happened 
 in the war for independence in America, and 
 by the placing such men as General Whitelock, 
 Lord Chatham, Sir John Murray, and several 
 others, at the head of our armies in the field. 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 91 
 
 These men disgraced themselves and our arms. 
 Four or five generals were placed in quick 
 succession at the head of our expedition to 
 Portugal in the last war, and were all as 
 quickly recalled. Then how ill was the army 
 commanded we sent to America in 1814 ! Can 
 we then believe that a system under which 
 such events occurred can be sound ? 
 
 The state of the army we sent to Germany 
 at the commencement of the last war was dis- 
 graceful. Its outposts, when before the enemy, 
 were not visited by the general officers on duty, 
 and head-quarters was every night a scene of 
 drunkenness, while the soldiers were without 
 discipline. This statement rests on no less 
 authority than that of the Duke of Wellington. 
 Until he was placed at the head of our armies 
 in the field, they had rarely any success. But 
 how did he, while young, arrive at so high a 
 station ? Was it by the force of his talents ? 
 No. By his great interest — by the instrumen- 
 tality of his brother, Lord Wellesley, Governor- 
 General of India, when the then Colonel 
 Wellesley arrived in that country, where he 
 was quickly placed at the head of an army, in 
 which post he had brilliant success. 
 
92 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 It may be said that this case makes in favour 
 of patronage. It would be unwise to come 
 to such a conclusion on account of a solitary 
 case. It is, on the contrary, melancholy to 
 reflect, that had the Duke of Wellington not 
 been the brother of the Governor-General of 
 India, but an officer without interest, he would, 
 in all probability, notwithstanding his great 
 military talents, have been compelled to re- 
 main the best part of his life performing the 
 simple duties of an officer in a line regiment of 
 infantry. 
 
 It will probably be very long before so able 
 a general appears again ; but whenever this 
 country shall possess an officer having much 
 more than the average amount of military 
 talents, there should be no chance of his not 
 becoming early known to the commander-in- 
 chief, and by him quickly afterwards brought 
 forward in his profession. 
 
 The great mass of our officers must, under 
 any system, be content to remain the best part 
 of their lives doing duty with their regiments, 
 and so long as they continue what they have 
 hitherto ever been — distinguished for their 
 bravery and honour — we ought to be well 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 93 
 
 satisfied, seeing how well they perform the 
 duties assigned to them. 
 
 The situation of our staff officers — that part 
 of them below the rank of general — is very 
 different, having to perform in a campaign 
 important, as well as instructive duties. Thus 
 being mounted when in the field, they are sent 
 about in every direction — particularly those on 
 the staff of the general commanding the army — 
 and become, in consequence, acquainted with 
 the whole of the ground on which the army 
 they are attached to in a campaign moves, as 
 well as the spots on which its battles ?xe 
 fought. In carrying and explaining the orders 
 which, from time to time, they receive in the 
 course of a campaign, they may, when talented, 
 distinguish themselves by important services. 
 Thus, at Albuera, it is well known, Lord 
 Hardinge, then on the staff, saved that battle 
 by two suggestions he addressed in the midst 
 of the fight to Lord Beresford. This of itself 
 would suffice to show the importance of having 
 our staff officers selected wholly on account of 
 their talents. But what is the fact ? Why 
 that the officers on the staff of our generals 
 are uniformly selected on account of their 
 
94 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 connections, and never on account of their 
 talents. 
 
 The situation of an officer in a campaign 
 doing duty with his regiment is very different, 
 as he can see little beyond the ground it occu- 
 pies, and does not come in contact with the 
 general officers. 
 
 The public believes that much talent is not 
 required by officers of the army, which is true 
 as respects infantry officers doing duty with 
 their regiments during the best part of their 
 lives, but it is impossible to read the "Dis- 
 patches" without feeling assured that no posi- 
 tion is more difficult than that of an officer in 
 command of an army in the field ; and that to 
 be long successful in that situation, he must 
 combine much natural genius for war, with an 
 almost unerring judgment. But such talents, 
 however great, require to be exercised before 
 they become impaired, either by age or by a 
 too long course of idleness. 
 
 What would now be the condition of all 
 difficult professions, trades, and arts, if those 
 who entered them, and were clever, relied for 
 their success on their connections rather than 
 on their talents ? Would such a system make 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 95 
 
 profound lawyers, clever surgeons, superior 
 manufacturers, or accomplished artists ? The 
 reply must be, No. How, then, can we 
 expect to be usually supplied with officers 
 fitted to command successfully an army in the 
 field, while they look to getting on in their 
 profession solely either to their money or their 
 connections ? Until we place talented officers 
 in the situation of talented men in other diffi- 
 cult professions, by giving them a sufficient 
 motive for exertion, they will not exert or 
 improve themselves. 
 
 We should then adopt a system, which shall 
 early make known to the commander-in-chief — 
 even in a period of peace — those officers who 
 possess much more than the average amount 
 of military talents ; but this point being accom- 
 plished, such officers must know, that after 
 studying the higher parts of their profession 
 with success, they will obtain an adequate 
 reward. 
 
 This change in our military system was 
 never more loudly called for than at present, 
 after a peace of nearly forty years duration on 
 the grand theatre of war, leaving us without a 
 general who has had the command of an army, 
 
96 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 a division, or even a brigade in the last 
 European war, while young enough now to go 
 through the fatigues of a campaign. 
 
 Our present Commander-in-Chief is suffi- 
 ciently talented and experienced, whilst suffi- 
 ciently active to command an army in the field, 
 but he is getting old. 
 
 In the absence of any plan for carrying out 
 this alteration in our system of military policy, 
 I submit that the Commander-in-Chief should 
 invite officers to send to the Horse Guards 
 their opinions in writing on certain military 
 questions. These to be named, and their 
 nature briefly explained in letters sent to the 
 officers commanding regiments in Great Britain, 
 to be by them communicated to the officers 
 under their command. Henceforth, I shall 
 call these opinions reports, and I use the word 
 invite, because to command in this case would 
 be improper, seeing how very few officers in 
 any army are calculated to discuss great mili- 
 tary questions who are yet excellent executive, 
 or regimental officers. The invitation should 
 be addressed only to officers who have attained 
 the rank of captain and of not less than 
 two years' standing. Younger officers, when 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 97 
 
 talented would not remain in the meantime 
 idle, but would be preparing themselves for 
 the period when they would be allowed to 
 send in their reports. In the meantime it 
 would not be desirable to bring them into com- 
 petition with older officers, because while the 
 former might fail only from being too young 
 they might succeed at a maturer age, if not 
 disgusted with their want of success at an 
 earlier period. 
 
 A board consisting of two well selected 
 officers, should be formed whose duty would 
 be to peruse the reports sent to the Horse 
 Guards, layingthose only before the Commander- 
 in-Chief which had merit, and when the two 
 officers forming the board, differed in opinion 
 on a report, they should refer it to the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief for his decision. It would 
 doubtless save trouble to have the board consist 
 of three instead of two officers, but it would be 
 easier to obtain two officers than three cal- 
 culated for such a duty. 
 
 As a commencement, a supposed invasion 
 from the opposite coast would form a good 
 subject for discussion in these reports. The 
 practicability of effecting a landing, being more 
 
 H 
 
98 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 a naval than a military question, these reports 
 should commence by supposing the debark- 
 ation of a hostile army effected on certain 
 parts of our coasts, pointing out the best spots 
 between the places of debarkation and the 
 metropolis for making a succession of stands 
 against the progress of the enemy and pointing 
 out the best spots for throwing up entrench- 
 ments. 
 
 Diagrams should not be required in these 
 reports ; when wanted, engineer officers are 
 the persons to supply them, and not the com- 
 mander of an army. 
 
 All that is wanted in the reports here con- 
 templated is unmistakeable evidence of stra- 
 tegic genius, allied with striking good sense. 
 
 As our coasts offer many spots calculated for 
 a debarkation, each of these would afford matter 
 for a separate report. The Commander-in- 
 Chief after receiving from the officers com- 
 manding regiments the names of their officers 
 who accepted the invitation to send in reports, 
 should appoint a time for a certain number 
 of them to proceed to the coast, allowing 
 them ten days for observation and drawing up 
 their first reports, which should, at the end of 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 99 
 
 that period, be sent into the Horse Guards. 
 Each officer whose first report was there 
 approved, should be invited to send in a second, 
 being allowed only seven days for composing 
 this. An officer whose second report was ap- 
 proved should be invited to send in a third, 
 five days only being allowed for this purpose. 
 These reports should refer exclusively to defend- 
 ing the route from three separate spots on our 
 coasts, on which the debarkation of an enemy 
 was supposed to have taken place. The officers 
 whose reports were approved should now be 
 each invited to make one on the defence of 
 London in the supposed event of an enemy 
 succeeding in reaching that place. 
 
 Reports should be invited from the officers 
 quartered in Ireland, on a supposed invasion of 
 that country on the spots naval men have judged 
 best calculated for a successful descent. This 
 duty should be executed on the same plan as 
 has been here sketched out for England. 
 
 After this, the Commander-in-Chief might 
 send those officers to Ireland whose reports in 
 England had been approved, inviting them to 
 send similar reports on a supposed invasion of 
 the former country. Then the officers quar- 
 
 H 2 
 
100 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 tered in Ireland whose reports on a supposed 
 invasion of that country had been approved 
 might be directed to come to England, and 
 send in similar reports on a supposed invasion 
 of that country. 
 
 In the commencement of this plan a great 
 mass of worthless reports would doubtless be 
 sent in, the result of vanity rather than talent ; 
 but if only one first-rate report was received in 
 the course of a dozen years, how great might 
 become its value by making the Commander-in- 
 Chief early acquainted with the writer. 
 
 The reports received at the Horse Guards 
 from our officers in their several expeditions 
 should remain the exclusive property of the 
 nation, and be divided into three classes. The 
 first should be for the reception of reports 
 which displayed an unusually great amount of 
 merit. The writer of such should be rewarded 
 by immediate promotion, and placed in a high 
 staff situation the moment it became vacant. 
 His advancement in rank should be rapid, not 
 only as a proper reward to the officer, but as 
 being of much advantage to the nation to obtain 
 early the greatest services which increased rank 
 enables a talented officer to render to his 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 101 
 
 country. We must bear in mind that talented 
 officers are as little disposed to exchange a 
 life of indolence and pleasure for one of much 
 mental exertion, as are the rest of the profession 
 unless an adequate reward be held out. 
 
 It might happen that no reports were received 
 for some years, the merit of which was so su- 
 perior to the rest as to deserve being placed in 
 the first class. The reports placed in the 
 second class, should display decisive merit, 
 though much less than one entitled to be placed 
 in the first. 
 
 The third class should be for the reception 
 of reports not wholly without talent, but without 
 enough to be placed in the second class. To 
 the writers of these inferior reports further time 
 should be granted for further exertion ; but if, 
 after waiting a reasonable period, the reports 
 of these officers did not become sufficiently 
 improved for placing in the second class, the 
 writers should be informed that further reports 
 from them would be dispensed with. 
 
 It will here be said that filling the staff situa- 
 tions with officers selected solely on account 
 of their talents, as displayed in their reports, 
 would deprive general officers of their present 
 
10*2 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 patronage ; yes, but only to confer an ines- 
 timable benefit on their country by placing 
 early on our staff precisely the officers best 
 calculated to perform its duties. 
 
 The next and last step should be to send 
 such of the officers, whose reports were satis- 
 factory, to Spain, under the orders of a general 
 officer, accompanied by an able artillery and 
 an able engineer officer ; the three having 
 served under the Duke of Wellington in that 
 country. 
 
 The object of this expedition, in the first 
 instance, would be to show these officers the 
 districts which were the scenes of the Duke 
 of Wellington's campaigns. The movements 
 which had preceded every battle should be 
 carefully pointed out to these officers, and 
 should be by them as carefully considered 
 as everything afterwards connected with the 
 battles. 
 
 It must be desirable to show young officers 
 who have had no experience in war, how our 
 armies were distributed in different fields of 
 battle, by such a general as the Duke of 
 Wellington. In the absence of such instruc- 
 tion, as well as of experience in actual warfare, 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 103 
 
 nothing can be more difficult on a field of 
 battle, offering striking varieties of ground, than 
 to occupy it well. Thus, to give in the course 
 of a campaign, or in a great battle, a sufficient 
 lateral extension to an army, without too much 
 weakening its communications, is a class of 
 knowledge which cannot be taught by books. 
 
 Having then selected the best officers for 
 affording instruction, as well as the best for 
 profiting by it, we should have done everything 
 in our power for securing a supply of officers 
 during the continuance of peace, fitted to com- 
 mand our armies in the field when war shall 
 arrive. 
 
 The officers sent to Spain would of course 
 consult carefully the "Dispatches," and Ge- 
 neral Napier's work. 
 
 Strategy is one of those arts which is not 
 wholly directed by what are called general 
 principles. Doubtless there are such in war 
 which should, in the great majority of cases, 
 be kept in view, but great commanders are 
 found occasionally to neglect them, and with 
 advantage. If it were otherwise, the art of 
 war, or the business of a general command- 
 ing an army in the field, might be wholly 
 
104 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 taught by books, like geometry and arithmetic. 
 This reminds me, that on its being mentioned 
 to the Duke of Wellington, that Bonaparte, 
 while only a general commanding an army, 
 had declined to give the then Government of 
 France a plan of his intended campaign in 
 Italy, before he left Paris, observed that Bona- 
 parte was right, as no general could determine 
 his plan of a campaign till he had surveyed 
 the district likely to be occupied. 
 
 This it is which renders going over a country 
 which has been the seat of war carried on bv a 
 great commander so pre-eminently useful. A 
 young officer there sees the situations where 
 what are called general principles were attended 
 to, and where they were neglected. 
 
 As an illustration of my opinion, that a visit 
 to the districts where a war has been carried 
 on is desirable, 1 beg the readers attention to 
 the terms, strong and weak, as applied to 
 military positions — terms necessarily in con- 
 stant use in all military works, and yet perfectly 
 vague, and practically unintelligible to officers 
 who have not seen service, or been in peace 
 instructed in the manner here pointed out. 
 Doubtless every man capable of thinking, will 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 105 
 
 satisfy himself that an open plain is inde- 
 fensible for an army deficient in cavalry and 
 artillery, but the positions I am now referring 
 to, displaying a much less decisive character, 
 require, in consequence, a practical military 
 eye, to be properly appreciated. An officer, 
 therefore, without experience in real warfare, 
 and without that practice in peace here recom- 
 mended, cannot, by reading alone, become a 
 judge of the relative strength of military posi- 
 tions. 80 long as he remains in this ignorance 
 he is unfit to command an army. 
 
 In the absence of war, there is nothing so 
 well calculated to mitigate this painful igno- 
 rance, as a visit to countries which have been 
 the scenes of war, accompanied by well selected 
 officers who were actors in it. By this plan, 
 the experience of one generation of officers 
 may be handed down to every succeeding one, 
 and may be thus continued to the end of time, 
 or to that of the British Empire. 
 
 If this plan should be thought worthy of a 
 trial, it should soon be made, so rapidly are 
 the officers who served in the Peninsula passing 
 away. Waterloo should be visited, and the 
 grounds well considered on which the actions 
 
106 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 of the 16th and 18th of June were fought. 
 As a finish to the instruction of these officers, 
 it might be well on their return to England, to 
 show them two or three districts calculated for 
 a campaign, inviting each of them to send in 
 two reports — one on the course an invading 
 army should take, and another showing the 
 course a defending army should follow — allow- 
 ing twelve hours only for drawing up each. 
 This would show what officers were most ready 
 in taking up military positions. 
 
 Under this system, no military man pos- 
 sessing more than usual abilities for war, could 
 long remain unknown to the Commander-in- 
 Chief, thus putting an end to our present 
 system, under which the most and the least 
 talented officers are placed and retained in the 
 same category. 
 
 When the next war shall arrive, and we 
 look at an army about to leave our shores, well 
 appointed and well disciplined, it would be 
 sad to feel, that while its success against 
 the enemy will depend almost wholly on 
 the talents of its commander, these are 
 lamentably insufficient. Yet how often have 
 we not sent out fine armies, which failed 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 107 
 
 because placed under incompetent com- 
 manders ? and if nothing in the meantime 
 be done to prevent this, it "will occur again 
 and again. 
 
 Doubtless under our present system, when 
 a clever officer in a time of war does happen 
 to get placed on the staff, he has a good 
 chance of rising high in his profession. What 
 I complain of under this system is, that though 
 a clever officer may get on the staff, he does 
 so not on account of his fitness, but on 
 account of his connections. 
 
 Such a system may be approved by those 
 who profit by it, but to the nation it is very 
 mischievous. 
 
 No system can be devised calculated to 
 measure with absolute exactitude the extent of 
 an officer's genius for war which stops short of 
 placing him at the head of an army in the field, 
 but it is not on that account less desirable to 
 know all that is ascertainable of an officer's 
 fitness for such an important post before he is 
 placed in it. 
 
 The knowledge which the system here re- 
 commended requires in officers who are to fill 
 high military posts, differs wholly from the 
 
108 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 knowledge obtained in schools. The object of 
 the system here recommended is first to find 
 out the officers who possess the necessary 
 talents for war, allied with a sound judgment, 
 and then to excite those talents into healthy 
 action. This is I submit a sound system, while 
 one which orders all officers to acquire the 
 scientific education which artillery and engi- 
 neer officers obtain and require, will break down ; 
 as only a very limited number of youths possess 
 the natural talents required to insure success in 
 those branches of the profession. It would 
 then be not only useless, but cruel to order the 
 great mass of our officers to send to head 
 quarters reports or opinions on difficult but 
 important military subjects which they cannot 
 grasp, yet they may be excellent regimental or 
 executive officers. But to invite officers to 
 send in their opinions on difficult subjects would 
 be unobjectionable. 
 
 A great army is rarely found wanting in 
 officers who have enjoyed and profited by a 
 scientific education, but those persons are rarely 
 found capable of commanding an army in the 
 field, because to do this successfully an officer 
 requires that which no education gives — namely, 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 109 
 
 a great natural genius for war or strategy, 
 allied with an almost unerring judgment. 
 
 The "Dispatches" show clearly what the 
 talents are which the commander of an army in 
 the field requires. The Duke was not a man 
 of science, but his talents were those most 
 wanted but rarely found. 
 
 The only difficulty which the system here 
 recommended might have to grapple with, would 
 be that of finding officers possessing sufficient 
 military knowledge to form a good board for 
 examining the reports. We must not, however, 
 forget that an officer may be able to judge pretty 
 correctly a military report, who could not write 
 a good one ; just as a man may be a competent 
 judge of poetry without being a poet, or a good 
 judge of the arts without being an artist. 
 
 None of the reports should be signed by the 
 writers, but each should be accompanied by a 
 note stating the writer's name, and affirming, on 
 his honour, that no one had assisted him in 
 drawing it up. 
 
 A confidential person in the Horse Guards 
 should collect all the reports sent into that 
 office, numbering them in a book, with the 
 writer's name annexed to each number. Then 
 
110 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 the reports should be handed to the board 
 with the numbers only annexed without the 
 names of the writers. This book should be 
 seen only by the person who had charge of it 
 and the Commander-in-Chief. This last plan 
 would be useful, not from an apprehension 
 that the judgment of the board would be im- 
 properly influenced, but because disappointed 
 candidates, being usually indisposed to concur 
 in an unfavourable judgment on their works, 
 are apt to fancy that their successful competi- 
 tors are unduly favoured. 
 
 The plan here recommended, to be fairly 
 judged, must be contrasted with the existing 
 system under which generals are placed at the 
 head of armies in the field, with whose fitness 
 for such a situation, those who place them in it 
 are too often wholly ignorant. Thus individual 
 members of our civil government have fre- 
 quently appointed officers to command our 
 armies without reference to the Commander- 
 in-Chief who was, sad to say, a cypher. If 
 we are not prepared to see this state of things 
 return, we must render the military profession 
 one which clever men, without interest, shall 
 henceforth be disposed to enter. 
 
OUR INFANTRY. Ill 
 
 Our object should be to place such officers, 
 as much as possible, in the situation of talented 
 men in other professions, these being early 
 excited to exertion by a well grounded ex- 
 pectation that they shall in time reap an ade- 
 quate reward. 
 
 It is to be regretted that so large a portion 
 of our army is always serving in our colonies, 
 as it goes to delay the operation of almost any 
 plan calculated to improve it. For this evil, 
 however, patience is our only resource. 
 
 If the plan here recommended for trial be 
 not the remedy required, no time should be 
 lost in devising a better, for the country may 
 be assured that our present military system is 
 bad, a fact which may one day signalize itself, 
 by the loss of a great battle and a fine army. 
 I say a great battle, because, when we again 
 go to war, it should be on a scale proportioned 
 to our means for carrying it on, and those are 
 now become very large. The excellence of 
 our soldiers is such, that with a proper officer 
 always available to command them when 
 in the field, we should have little to fear from 
 a conflict with any nation in the world. We 
 should then not need to advance the large 
 
112 OUR INFANTRY. 
 
 sums we have done to other nations for their 
 assistance in previous wars, obtaining usually 
 a very small return. 
 
 If no better plan suggest itself than that 
 here proposed for getting our armies well com- 
 manded when in the field, aided by a competent 
 staff, it is surely worth while to give this a fair 
 trial, as by doing so no expense worth naming 
 would be incurred. 
 
 The improper interference of our civil 
 government with the Commander-in-Chief in 
 a time of war should not be again practised. 
 We lost very many men at Waterloo on account 
 of our want of guns, yet the Duke of Wellington 
 had written sufficiently early to the government 
 to state the number he required. Then, in- 
 stead of allowing the Duke to select his own 
 staff for that campaign from amongst the 
 officers he had known in Spain, they sent him 
 young ones, with whom he was wholly un- 
 acquainted. He remonstrated on both these 
 subjects, but to no purpose. He says, in one 
 of his letters to government, " It is quite im- 
 possible for me to superintend the details of 
 the duties of these departments myself, having 
 already more to arrange than I am equal to ; 
 
OUR INFANTRY. 113 
 
 and I cannot entrust them to the young gen- 
 tlemen on the staff of this army. Indeed I 
 may say I do not know how to employ them" 
 If our government could so conduct itself to- 
 wards so powerful and able a commander as 
 the Duke of Wellington, it is clear that a 
 military system under which such things could 
 happen, is a dangerous one, and if in the next 
 European war we send, as we ought, a large 
 British army on the continent, it may, by 
 failing, endanger our national independence. 
 
LONDON : 
 G. J. PALMER, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.