Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1874 — Should Horses Wear Blinders ? [ARTICLE]

Should Horses Wear Blinders ?

We never could see whit vice or deformity lay in a horse’s eye,’ that should make it necessary to cover it up and shut out its owner from at least two-thirds of his rightful field of vision. The poets say that old age looks backward; but we never heard such an idiosyncrasy charged upon the horse. The theory that a horse is less apt to be frightened when shut out from everything behind him we suspect to be a fallacy, else saddle horses and war horses would be duly blinded. Every horse is as familiar with his own carriage as with his own tail, and, as far as his “ personal” fortitude is concerned, is no more disturbed at being pursned by one than the other. As for she other scarecrows that come up behind, they are mostly so familiar to the animal that the more fully the horse can perceive them the more quietly does he submit to their approach. Then it is such a pity to cover

up one of the most brilliant features of this most brilliant creature. The horse has borne such a hand in the civilization of this rough-and-tumble world that it seems not so milch a cruelty as a discourtesy, as well as a disgrace, to hide his form with embarrassing toggery. No wonder We estimate the force in the world' as horse-power; no wonder the Romans and the Germans, each in their own language, designated their aristocracy as riders; no wonder their descendants made chivalnr a synonym for their highest virtues. <Let the horse be given his unblinded. The check rein is another nuisance in harness wear which has almost entirely disappeared from England, the army having at last given it up by order of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir George Burgoyne.— Webster Times.