The signs that announce the advent of mad staggers, from whichever cause the disease may arise, are always alike. The lid is raised, and the eye assumes an unnatural brightness. The nasal membrane reddens; the surface becomes as hot as it was previously deficient in warmth; the movements are quick and jerking. The breath is no longer laborious--it is rapid, sharp, and drawn with a kind of panting action. The whole appearance is altered. The characteristics of approaching frenzy can hardly be mistaken. [Illustration: THE HORSE DURING THE MAD STAGE OF STAGGERS.] Then comes the most painful duty of ownership over life. The proprietor has, then, to make a speedy choice, whether his dumb servant is to take a desperate chance and undergo a torture for which the concentrated pleasure of many lives could not atone, or be deprived of the fatal power to injure others and itself. Humanity would unhesitatingly pronounce for death, and, in this case, there is need of haste. The symptoms are so rapidly matured, that, in ten minutes, the poor horse may be sadly hurt and bleeding, panting and rearing, in the center of a desolated stable. A mad horse is a terrible object! Its strength is so vast that ordinary fastenings yield before it; but the animal, even when deprived of reason, wins our respect. Suffering will find expression in energetic action. Man, when a tooth is about to be extracted, generally clinches something; but what were a hundred teeth to the agony which causes every fiber in the huge framework to quiver? The perspiration rolls off the creature's body. The eye glares with anguish, not with malice; the body is strangely contorted, but there is no desire to injure. Who, contemplating such a picture, could forbear speaking the word which should grant peace to the sufferer, although the order necessitate some violence to the feelings of him who is invested with power to command? MEGRIMS.