Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/623

 closer bond by residence in India, where everybody rides—or ought to ride—where horses and horse-keep are cheap, and where large castes of stable servants, contented with a low wage, are capable, Tinder careful superintendence, of keeping their animals in a state of luxurious comfort. The horses, however, which serve native masters are born to purgatory rather than to paradise. Those in the hands of the upper classes suffer from antiquated and barbarous systems of treatment, and are often killed by mistaken kindness or crippled by bad training, while those of low degree are liable to cruel ill-usage, overwork, neglect, and unrelieved bondage.



The "thorn-bits" here engraved are ordinary specimens of those in use; the cut requires careful examination before their murderous character can be made out. Some say the Indian bit is severe because the average horseman, being of slight build, is physically incapable of holding a horse with a fair one. There may be something in this, but the weakness is more moral than physical; nerve is more wanting than muscle, and reason most of all.