ery soon that they were safe. The poor brute on whose success
so many thousands depended could not even gallop; he trailed on wearily
for a little, without showing any sign of his old gallant fire and
speed, and at last his hopeless rider stopped him. This story is in the
mouths of all men; and now perhaps our simpletons maybe surprised to
hear that the wretched animal which was the innocent cause of loss and
misery was poisoned by a narcotic. In his efforts to move freely he
strained himself, for the subtle drug deprived him of the power of using
his limbs, and he could only sprawl and wrench his sinews. This is the
fourth case of the kind which has recently occurred; and now clever
judges have hit upon the cause which has disabled so many good horses,
after the rascals of the Ring have succeeded in laying colossal amounts
against them. Too many people know the dire effects of the morphia
injections which are now so commonly used by weak individuals who fear
pain and _ennui_; the same deadly drug is used to poison the horses. One
touch with the sharp needle-point under the horse's elbow, and the
subtle, numbing poison speeds through the arteries and paralyzes the
nerves; a beautiful creature that comes out full of fire and courage is
converted in a very few minutes into a dull helpless mass that has no
more conscious volition than a machine. The animal remains on its feet,
but exertion is impossible, and neither rein, whip, nor spur serves to
stimulate the cunning poisoner's victim. About the facts there can now
be no dispute: and this last wretched story supplies a copestone to a
pile of similar tales which has been in course of building during the
past three or four years. Enraged men have become outspoken, and things
are now boldly printed and circulated which were mentioned only in
whispers long ago. The days of clumsy poisoning have gone by; the
prowling villain no longer obtains entrance to a stable for the purpose
of battering a horse's leg or driving a nail into the frog of the foot;
the ancient crude devices are used no more, for science has become the
handmaid of scoundrelism. When in 1811 a bad fellow squirted a solution
of arsenic into a locked horse-trough, the evil trick was too clumsy to
escape detection, and the cruel rogue was promptly caught and sent to
the gallows; but we now have horse-poisoners who hold a secret similar
to that which Palmer of Rugeley kept so long. I say "a secret," though
every skil