Now, in conclusion, we must answer the important inquiry,--what is the cause of this affliction? Poverty, without dependence, inherits few disorders. Nature, in mercy, spares the peasant those visitations which are heaped upon the nobleman. To what, then, shall we attribute the ailment of a life so entirely in possession of another as that of the horse? Is it untruth to point to that which in ordinary language passes for the master's thoughtlessness? The creature is often worked, not to the point of fatigue, but is goaded to the possibility of exhaustion; fed upon the cheapest sustenance, and lodged according to the proprietor's convenience; made subservient to the whims of vanity, and forced to conform to the habits or the caprices of fashion; now, waiting patiently in the storm; then, hurried along the dusty roads through the parching heat; now, stopped during a long journey and expected hastily to consume the provender which shall support life the remainder of the distance: treatment like this will provoke more acute evils than pneumonia. The last disorder is of too dull a type to be begotten by so harsh a parent. The horse which is pampered, or has much to eat and little work to do; the creature which for days may stagnate in the stable and then be suddenly brought forth to extraordinary exertion; the horse whose owner is capricious; the animal whose work is uncertain; the quadruped which now is idle, and now is required to make good the lost time,--is the living being prepared to exhibit any slow disorder--to consume itself with the disease which an existence, properly treated, would possess the energy to resist. Is it strange, that a creature doomed to so much and such deep subserviency, occasionally fails, even when possessed by what men call the best of masters? Is it just reason for wonder, that flesh occasionally rebels against the treatment which human ignorance subjects it to? Were the horse not a very hardy animal, were not the life implanted as firmly as the frame is set, it would not survive a tithe part of the usage it now endures, and, notwithstanding, continues to live on and to obey. PLEURISY.