gly--as
means of persuasion only, never as instruments of punishment. Baucher's
system is intended to develope the better instincts of the animal, not
to punish the vices which we have taught him, in vain efforts to subdue
a strength incalculably greater than ours--which by resolute cruelty we
have forced him to employ in resisting our unjust demands. Baucher lays
it down as an axiom that no horse is naturally vicious, but that his
vices are acquired through bad management. One may possess a higher
temper than another, to be sure, but spirited horses are those which
turn out best under his method of training. The more intelligent the
animal, the more capable of instruction--the more frolicksome but the
more tractable is his disposition. We all remember "Mayfly," a trick
horse at Welch's circus, that could perform anything possible to a
horse: he was a pupil of Baucher. But before falling into his skilful
hands, this animal was so vicious, that on the race course it was
thought necessary to start him from a box, in order to prevent his
injuring himself and the other horses. Here there is an instance in
which confirmed ill habits were completely eradicated by proper
discipline; and how much easier must it be to establish good ones, where
we have nothing but pliant ignorance with which to contend. It is not
within our limits to enter fully into the different merits of Baucher's
treatise. It is sufficient to say that it has been tested, approved and
adopted by the most skilful riders of Europe--the late Duc d'Orleans, a
more than graceful horseman, having been Baucher's patron until the day
of his unfortunate death. The most vigorous and searching inquiries of
the government failed to overthrow the system in a single particular;
and wherever Baucher was led into argument with his opponents, the mere
force of his philosophical reasonings was sufficient to put them down.
His book has gone through nine editions in France, and as many in
Russia, Germany, Belgium and Holland. The present translation is well
executed, in clear comprehensible English; its only defect, if that can
be considered one, is, that it is somewhat too idiomatically precise. So
little does it smell of the usual vulgarity of the stable, that we are
led to believe Baucher has fallen into the hands of a translator of
taste and refinement, who not only admires the system for its practical
uses, but also for its logical exactness and genial humanity. The work
is