Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Black Beauty
Have now finished the book, having acquired and started it on our summer holiday (see August 26th). It was an interesting read even though the reason why I wanted to read it in the first place still eludes me. But I was reminded of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and was not surprised to read in Wikipedia that the book had originally been intended for adults and triggered a wave of interest in horse welfare.
Bearing reins were a particular target, being straps commonly used at the time of writing to force the head of a fashionable shaft horse up, a practice which is uncomfortable for the horse and can lead to long term health problems.
The large numbers of brutal horse men and boys was another, with alcoholic drink being cited as a strong contributing cause. I suppose at a time when horses were all over the place and a lot of life was pretty brutal anyway, it was inevitable that there would be a lot of brutal treatment of horses. Unlike cows - of which there were presumably comparable numbers but, I would imagine, were the subject of far less wanton cruelty - they lived with us and worked for us - and there were both good and bad relationships with horses. Furthermore, provision for horses in old age not too clever and I suspect that the phrase 'going to the dogs' originally meant being sent for dog food when you were too old to work any more.
Broken knees get a fair amount of air time, which prompted me to find and peruse an article on horse damage by someone called 'Claims Five' in the horsey part of the online Guardian, an article which reminded me that mending damaged horses was a lot harder than you might think, much harder than mending apparently comparable damage in humans. There are also some interesting guidelines about horse euthanasia lifted from http://www.aaep.org/euthanasia_guidelines.htm. No doubt we will get there on our own account one day.
The story is written in the first person by the horse in question, Black Beauty. Now while I doubt whether horses are capable of thought - the story does not require speech or great intellectual gifts - I do not doubt that they are conscious. They know about pain and pleasure, they have memory and they have fear and anticipation. So in owning a horse you are taking on a big responsibility - that is if you don't cave in and decide that one large animal owning another large animal is not really on. This is what, I think, has most struck me. Not yet a veggie., but there are maybe glimmers of the veggie. light!
BH tells me that the book was banned in South Africa at one time because it was thought that the title might corrupt. I should have thought that the content would have been far more corrupting - the read across from horses to slaves - albeit in its modified aparthied version - being all too obvious.
Bearing reins were a particular target, being straps commonly used at the time of writing to force the head of a fashionable shaft horse up, a practice which is uncomfortable for the horse and can lead to long term health problems.
The large numbers of brutal horse men and boys was another, with alcoholic drink being cited as a strong contributing cause. I suppose at a time when horses were all over the place and a lot of life was pretty brutal anyway, it was inevitable that there would be a lot of brutal treatment of horses. Unlike cows - of which there were presumably comparable numbers but, I would imagine, were the subject of far less wanton cruelty - they lived with us and worked for us - and there were both good and bad relationships with horses. Furthermore, provision for horses in old age not too clever and I suspect that the phrase 'going to the dogs' originally meant being sent for dog food when you were too old to work any more.
Broken knees get a fair amount of air time, which prompted me to find and peruse an article on horse damage by someone called 'Claims Five' in the horsey part of the online Guardian, an article which reminded me that mending damaged horses was a lot harder than you might think, much harder than mending apparently comparable damage in humans. There are also some interesting guidelines about horse euthanasia lifted from http://www.aaep.org/euthanasia_guidelines.htm. No doubt we will get there on our own account one day.
The story is written in the first person by the horse in question, Black Beauty. Now while I doubt whether horses are capable of thought - the story does not require speech or great intellectual gifts - I do not doubt that they are conscious. They know about pain and pleasure, they have memory and they have fear and anticipation. So in owning a horse you are taking on a big responsibility - that is if you don't cave in and decide that one large animal owning another large animal is not really on. This is what, I think, has most struck me. Not yet a veggie., but there are maybe glimmers of the veggie. light!
BH tells me that the book was banned in South Africa at one time because it was thought that the title might corrupt. I should have thought that the content would have been far more corrupting - the read across from horses to slaves - albeit in its modified aparthied version - being all too obvious.
# posted by Jim @ 8:57 AM 
