eatures!"

"As for racing," said Miss Perceval, "a thorough-bred horse enters into
the spirit of it quite as much as his rider. Did you never hear of
Quin's celebrated steed, which became so eager to win, that when his
antagonist passed he seized him violently by the leg, and both jockeys
had to dismount that the furious animal might be torn away. The famous
horse Forester, too, caught hold of his opponent by the jaw, and could
scarcely be disengaged."

"Think of all the cruel training these poor creatures went through
before they came to that," added Lady Rockville; "of the way in which
horses are beaten, spurred, and severely cut with the whip; then, after
their strength fails, like the well-known 'high-mettled racer,' the poor
animal is probably sold at last to perpetual hard labour and ill-usage."

"Uncle David shewed me yesterday," said Laura, "that horrid picture
which you have probably seen, by Cruickshanks, of the Knackers' Yards in
London, where old horses are sent to end their miserable days, after it
is impossible to torture them any longer into working. Oh! it was
dreadful! and yet grandmama said the whole sketch had been taken from
life."

"I know that," answered Lady Rockville. "In these places the wretched
animals are literally put to death by starvation, and may be seen
gnawing each other's manes in the last agonies of hunger."

"My dear Lady Rockville," exclaimed Miss Perceval, affectedly, "how can
you talk of such unpleasant things!--there is an Act of Parliament
against cruelty to animals, so of course no such thing exists now. Many
gentlemen are vastly kind to old horses, turning them out to grass for
years, that they may enjoy a life of elegant leisure and rural
retirement, to which, no doubt, some are well entitled; for instance,
the famous horse Eclipse, which gained his owner L25,000! I wish he had
been mine!"

"But think how many are ruined when one is enriched, and indeed both are
ruined in morals and good feeling; therefore I am glad that our sex have
never yet taken to the turf. It is bad enough, my dear Miss Perceval, to
see that they have taken to the moors; for were I to say all I think of
those amazons who lately killed their six brace of grouse on the 12th of
August, they would probably challenge me to single combat. Lord
Rockville says, 'What with gentlemen doing worsted work, and ladies
shouldering double-barrelled guns, he scarcely thinks this can be the
same world he was born