equicide

— Before him lay extended the brown body of a donkey, whose broken lariot and fixed eye told the tale. I thought for a moment that its hoof was moving; but before a word had passed, all was still.[…] / “Messieurs, it was not my fault. I told them at Weggis the animal was too small; but they forced him on me, saying that he was a convenient size. My legs touched ground. They said I should escape a fall. The donkey was hungry and emulous. I had no guide to restrain him; but I did not urge him. He weakened as he warmed. He drank of the cold rills. He brayed aloud. He passed the châlet with a snort;—he snorted out his breath. Ah, Messieurs! it is all over with him and me. How shall I get down to-morrow with a gout and no donkey? This air is sharpening it into rheumatism,” swore he with a German oath, as, resting on one leg, he / “Steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, / And bitterly thought of the morrow.” / “Rank equicide!” growled the Scot. “Puir mewel!” / By this time, the entire procession was gathered round the deceased.

— Fathers of families with corpulent wives and a numerous progeny, never heed the torture they impose upon the unhappy animal but they one and all crowd into the feeaton with a turn over seat and drive away with their families to Clapton, Hackney, Turnham Green or Bow—in short wherever their country box may be situated. That diminutive quadruped, the pony, too, is enlisted in the barbarous cause, and is made, now-a-days, to do the duty of a dray-horse: it is really monstrous to see the work they are called upon to perform. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals should look to this. The heartless drivers of these “equicides,” or horse-killing carriages know little and care less about rotatory motion,—they are not aware that the smaller a wheel is in circumference the heavier is the draft. The ladies, poor souls, imagine that because the wheels are small, the carriage must be light;