Why should
we be called churlish? Is it not true that a million of men and women
waste a day on a pursuit which brings them into contact with filthy
intemperance, stupid debauch, unspeakable coarseness? The eruptive
sportsman tells us that the sight of a good man on a good horse should
stir every manly impulse in a Briton. What rubbish! What manliness can
there be in watching a poor baby-colt flogged along by a dwarf? If one
is placed at some distance from the course, then one may find the
glitter of the pretty silk jackets pleasing; but, should one chance to
be near enough to see what is termed "an exciting finish," one's
general conception of the manliness of racing may be modified. From afar
off the movement of the jockeys' whip-hands is no more suggestive than
the movement of a windmill's sails; but, when one hears the "flack,
flack" of the whalebone and sees the wales rise on the dainty skin of
the immature horse, one does not feel quite joyous or manly. I have seen
a long lean creature reach back with his right leg and keep on jobbing
with the spur for nearly four hundred yards of a swift finish; I saw
another manikin lash a good horse until the animal fairly curved its
back in agony and writhed its head on one side so violently that the
manly sporting-men called it an ungenerous brute.
Pages:
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387