world. ward mark distinguished the Jewish that Spirit that we have learned to religion before the times of the Temple reckon him who declared at Jacob's ceremonial. No doubt, in some re- Well that God is a spirit, as the Lamb spects, it has a half-savage character, of God that taketh away the sin of the with its bloodshed and burning and rapid eating after a long fast. There is an absence of what is called spirituality and of religious elevation. But the simplicity of it, its freedom from ritual, its family character, its obvious reminiscences of the habits of a wandering life, and, above all, its direct connection with a great event of sacred history; these features show the original meaning of the Passover, and its appropriateness to the time of its institution. Yet we must not exaggerate, or overpraise the early religious habits of the Jews. How different the thoughts which accompanied such a ceremony from the thoughts of God's people in later ages! "Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldst not. Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? - the sacrifices of God are a broken heart." How different the idea of those butchered and sheared lambs from the thought of him who was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and was dumb as a sheep before her shearers! How different that half-savage feast from the quiet hour in the upper chamber, when Jesus said, "With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer"! How few the points of contact between the bodily satisfaction with which those Samaritans devour roasted lambs, and the feelings that arise in Christian hearts when we say that Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us ! Different? Yes: as the seed differs from the flower, as the struggling stream differs from the broad river, as the first thoughts of a child about God differ from the matured religion of the philosopher. Historically, they are one and the same. Through the working of the Divine Spirit of truth and reverence and humanity upon such a primitive usage, man has reached the grandest and broadest views of his relation to the justice and the mercy of the Most High. It is by the inworking of From The Spectator. THE LONDON HORSE AT HOME. LONDON horses are the result of the completest form of "urban immigration" known. Probably not thirty of the three hundred thousand which live within the Metropolitan area were born there. Yet, such is the natural intelligence of their kind, that, after a training lasting not more than eight months, even at the longest, they are as much at home in London streets, and as healthy in London stables, as if they had never known the freedom of a Suffolk strawyard, or an Irish hillside. Even in manners and appearance, the London horse differs from his country cousin. Even the street arab detects the latter. "Hullo ! here's a country 'orse; let's take a rise out of him," was the amiable comment of a street urchin, on seeing a rustic Dobbin which had brought a load of hay into town during the summer droughts, munching from its nose-bag outside a Chelsea " public." In "The Horse World of London," published by the Religious Tract Society, Mr. W. J. Gordon has given not a sketch, but an exhaustive and brightly written account of the varied lives and work of the animals themselves, and of the organized system of collective ownership which mainly governs the employment and purchase of London horses. There is hardly a page in the book which is not full of facts, mainly new, and always interesting. As we read, the mixed and bewildering equine crowd which pours along the streets in carriages and four-wheeled cabs, tradesmen's carts and parcel-vans, brewers' drays and road-cars, dust-carts and coal-carts, hansoms and hearses, is resolved into classes, nations, and callings, destined for separate uses, with reasonable purpose. The immense scale on which horses are now " jobbed" from large proprietors, and the steady decline of private ownership, is perhaps the most interesting fact, from an economic point of view, on which Mr. Gordon dwells. Tilling, of Peckham, ready to stand in harness or to start at any speed wished by his driver. Besides the great "jobbers," the omnibus companies, the railways, the London vestries, and the large breweries and owns a stud of twenty-five hundred of distilleries own troops and regiments of all kinds, and these are hired for work horses, and the combination of capiin every part of the Kingdom, from tal and high organization with proper the heavy cart-horse to the riding-cob. economic management in these great They are to be found in Sunderland, in establishments has set a standard of Cornwall, and at Brighton. They are good and humane treatment by which hired by every class of customer, from the London horse has greatly benefited. the lord mayor and sheriffs to the laun- Better and larger stables, good food and dry company. Peck and Frean hire a litter, and steady work, with regular hundred for their biscuit-vans; a great days of rest, have lengthened the life brewer "jobs" as many more. Even and improved the physique of the Lonsome of the tram-lines are thus horsed; don horse. A good brewer's horse, so is the Fire Brigade, the Salvage standing 17.2, was weighed by Mr. GorCorps, and now the mounted police. don, and tipped the beam at just over The advantage of these large establish- the ton. The driver weighed 20 stone ments is plain. If a horse turns out 12 pounds! The van, fully loaded, 6 unfit for the use for which it is bought, tons 15 hundredweight, to which must it can be transferred to another. If be added the harness, making a total unsuited for a smart carriage, it can be with the driver of nearly 8 tons. Three hired out to the doctor, and if trouble- horses draw the whole; and it was some, can be put to hard labor for a stated that, on the average, three season in an omnibus, and thence horses now do the work which four transferred, after a course of disci- did twenty years ago. "The vans have pline, to the luxurious life of private improved, the roads have improved, service. This is an old device; but hitherto the transfer could not be made without the sale and repurchase of the animal at a loss, until the horse-owner increased his stock to a size which made such change of employment possible. One small owner, the possessor and the horses have improved, - especially the horses." We agree with Mr. Gordon in thinking that steady attention to the breeding of draught-horses all over the country has probably increased their size and power, just as it has increased the average size of the of four or five light "vanners," was thoroughbred. The latter gains one wont to boast that he had bought a hand in a century. In 1700 he stood, horse for £5 and sold it for £50; and on the average, at 13.2; he now stands we will present Mr. Gordon with the 15.3. We might suggest a rough test story for his next edition. The animal, purchased at an equine "rubbish" sale, was a confirmed bolter. No sooner was it harnessed than it set off at full gallop, a career which generally ended in a smash, and the immediate resale of the culprit. But the new purchaser, far from trying to check this propensity, resolved, as he said, to "humor him a bit," and generously "lent him to a fire-engine." The horse soon found that he was encouraged not draught-horses. only to bolt at starting, but to keep up the pace, and in six months was quite of the growth of the draught-horse. The shafts of the "tumbril," or country two-wheeled farm-cart, have probably been set on at their present height by the tradition of one hundred years in wheelwrights' shops. If compared with the height of the shafts in the "tumbrils " used for the monster horses of the London vestries, a clue might be gained as to the proportionate increase in the height of the best The main conditions of health for the London horse, when once acclimatized, seem to be the Sunday's rest, makes of shoes as in a Northampton and proper care of his feet. Experi- shoe-factory." ence only proves the truth of the evi- Mr. Gordon has a separate and amusdence given by Bianconi, when the ing treatise on nearly every branch whole mail traffic of Ireland was run of the London horse-world, from the on his cars. He owned more horses queen's "Creams" to the funeral steed than any man of his time, and declared and the typical cab-horse. His story that he got far more work out of them of the request that King William IV. when he ran them only six days a would delay hastening to the House to week than when he ran them seven. dissolve Parliament in 1831, in order to give time for the cream-colored State horses to have their manes plaited, and the king's reply, "Plait the manes! I'll go in a hackney coach," is part of the tradition of the Buckingham palace stables. But the sequel of the indig Mr. Gordon cites Lord Erskine's speech when introducing a bill dealing with cruelty to animals : "Man's dominion is not absolute, but is limited by the obligations of justice and mercy; and, except in the case of certain unfortunate hackneys, which can be used nant coachman swearing at the guard in carts on week-days, and serve in of honor, and having to descend from a cab on Sundays, most owners seem the box and apologize after conveynow to recognize both the justice and ing his Majesty to the House, gives utility of allowing their horses a Sab- greater finish to the episode. The bath of rest. Hard work is terribly funeral horses are State steeds in aggravated by any mischief in the their way also, and, like the queen's horses' feet, most of the cases of "cru-cream-colors, are foreigners, or of forelty" being due to working them in eign extraction. But the creams are that condition. The ponderous hoof of Hanoverian descent. The "Black of the dray-horse crushes down upon Brigade" are all Flemish, and come to iron or sharp stone, and at once drives the object deep into the foot. Iron nails inflict the worst injuries, and when "demolitions" are going on, or London by way of Rotterdam and Harwich. There are nearly seven hundred in London ; and these are mainly the property of one or two large owners. masses of broken material are known "The jobmaster is at the back of the to be about to be carted through burying world." One of these speaks the streets, drags and vans are often very pleasantly of his black stud. "I sent by circuitous routes in order am not a horsey man," says the underto avoid the nail-studded pavements. taker, "but I have known this class of Proper shoeing is almost as important horse all my life, and I say they are as daily foot examination for these quite affectionate and good-natured, bulky horses. "There is no animal and seem to know instinctively what more carefully shod than a brewer's you say to them and what you want. horse," writes Mr. Gordon. "At Cour- One thing, they have an immense amount of self-esteem, and that you have to humor. Of course I have to choose the horses, and I do not choose the vicious ones. I can tell them by the glance they give as they look round at me." They are very fanciful as to their company, and if a colored horse is put in the stalls among them, the age's, for instance, no such things as standard sizes are known. Many have a different make and shape of shoe on each hoof. The shoe is always made specially to fit the foot, and these are never thrown away, but are mended soled and heeled in fact-by having pieces of iron welded into them again and again. Some of the shoes are blacks at once turn fretful and miser steel-faced; some are barred, the shoe going all round the foot; some have heels, some toes; some one clip, some two. In fact, there are almost as many able. Mr. Gordon has a fund of stories and experiences of the sale-rooms, the donkey-mart at Islington, and the export and import trade. I. THE LETTERS OF SIR WALTER SCOтт,. Blackwood's Magazine, II. MANETTE ANDREY; OR, LIFE DURING III. THE EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES. IV. A MALAGASY FOREST, V. THE CHEMICAL ACTION OF MARINE 515 Paul Perret, 525 Macmillan's Magazine, 539 552 Fortnightly Review, 564 Gentleman's Magazine, 571 575 BUSH FRIENDS IN TASMANIA WITH PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & CO., BOSTON. 514 TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & CO. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents. LINES TO A WRITER OF FAIRY-TALES. Он, chronicler of Elves and Bees, A PARAGON FRAME (OF MIND). ["I never took anybody's umbrella." - Plaintiff (a cook) in a recent Breach of Promise Case.] Whose leagues, whose loves, whose strifes COMMON are cooks, professed, plain alike you tell And battles in the foxglove bell : I know there dwells in your command And I, constrained in dingy hive Then make it peace for you and me Spectator. S. L. GWYNN. And common, youths their sustenance who feed on, Common (I'm told) a breach of promise suit, And common, damages, in courts agreed TO GOD AND IRELAND TRUE. I SIT beside my darling's grave, "I love my God o'er all," he said, No tender nurse his hard bed smoothed, He fell asleep and woke in heaven, Ere I knew that he was dead; Oh! 'tis a glorious memory, ELLEN O'LEARY. |