inciples, and including the Breaking and Training of
Horses, with Instructions for obtaining a good Seat; illustrated with
Engravings_: by F. BAUCHER. It is translated from the ninth Paris
edition, and makes a handsome duodecimo. Among the many systems of
horsemanship which have appeared none has fallen under our notice so
valuable as this. The chief defect of previous publications has been
that they were mere collections of rules, applicable to particular cases
only, based on no established principles, and therefore as impracticable
for general purposes as crude and unphilosophical in design. Ignorance
was at the root of this. The authors did not understand the nature of
the animal about which they professed to teach so much, and their rules
were quite as applicable to the bear or the hyena. The agent employed by
the old masters was force--severe bitting, hard whipping, and deep
spurring. Some went so far as to recommend the use of fire, in extreme
cases--thus establishing a kind of equine martyrdom, in which the poor
brute suffered indeed, but without any advantage to the faith of his
more brutal persecutors. These various punishments were prescribed with
the utmost coolness, often with jocularity, as if the horse under the
worst tortures were only getting his deserts, and as if the amount and
importance of his laborious services by no means entitled him to any
forbearance. Human ingenuity is capable of absolute development in the
direction of cruelty; it seems to be the most visible and satisfying
side of our capabilities; no man who commits a slow murder, whether on
one animal or another, can doubt that he has done _something_--the proof
stares him in the face. Then again, murder is adapted to the lowest
capacities; there is not a groom in the land less capable of taking life
than the finest gentleman. The issue of all this has been--if the horse
were not killed at once--to shorten his days, to lessen his
intelligence, to injure his form, and to degrade and dwindle his race,
from generation to generation.

Who, after following the old course of training, has a right to complain
of the degeneracy which he sees in the broken-hearted drudges around
him, or, having any feeling, will hesitate in adopting a more humane
course, if one be offered? Such a course is submitted to English readers
for the first time in this translation of M. Baucher. The harsh bit is
entirely cast aside, and the whip and spur are used very sparin