equicide

The killing of a horse.

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.

The idea of making beef out of that noble animal, for which every man of heart entertains an affection only second to that which binds him to his own race—the animal which approaches nearer than any other of the four-footed creation to man, in the nobler traits of soul and character—could only emanate from bipeds of the Greeley species. There should be a law passed for such sneaks, against killing the horse to eat, unless it be a broken-legged or used-up animal, which would be relieved by death, and that would be pretty good diet for such creatures. The offense of equicide must be defied and provided for by our next Legislature, or the Greeleyites will be getting up a horse-eating phalanx and party.

One who or that which kills a horse.

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;

About seventy equicides assembled at the fixture specified in the card of “The Meets,” that is to say, The Black Bull, on a foggy, splashy, mnddy,^([sic – meaning muddy]) fishing, Scotch misty, egg flip-drinking day.