Another cause is kicking while in harness. This habit is always attributed to vice: to speak of vice as associated with the ideas of a simple animal is purely ridiculous. Fear is a much more probable cause, if man would only expand his understanding to comprehend the motives likely to actuate an unreasoning creature; vice is far too heroic an impulse, far too human a failing, for the horse to embody. Fear is essentially an animal passion; that some mighty influence agitates the quadruped, when it begins to kick in harness, is proved by the serious accidents the horse encounters through this habit. No life can be careless of its own existence; all creatures are conservatives where their own being is concerned. Would mankind only admit this fact, and seek to gain the confidence of, as they now labor to establish authority over, the horse, gentle words, spoken when the impulse was awakened, might reassure the animal, and would thus frequently save the owner from impending danger. A third cause is lazy drivers riding on cart-horses, when unhooked, as leaders of the wagon; the poles, called spreaders, which keep the chains asunder, frequently hang so low that, at every movement of the leg, they strike the point of the hock. The uneven paving of some stables is likewise said to produce the disease; in short, anything which may cause the point of the calcis to suffer violence will produce a capped hock. The cure for capped hock has been differently directed. Some hobble the hind legs of the horse, to prevent its kicking in the night; some fasten a chain and a log to one hind limb, for the same purpose; others suspend a piece of loose cloth at the back of the horse; but the best plan is always to leave a lantern lighted in the stable. The power to see around reassures timidity, while darkness is an awful instigator of terror; horses often fly back in their stalls, but never kick, during daylight. Then, as to the cure: Such a tumor, when recent, is hot and somewhat painful; at this time, keep it wet with cold water or with a lotion formed of spirits of wine and water in equal parts; when the tenderness has subsided, procure some men who want employment and have strong arms; set these fellows to rub the cap of the hock constantly, and the tumor, in three or four days, or in less time, will have disappeared. [Illustration: THE SKIN FROM BENEATH WHICH THE TUMOR OF CAPPED HOCK HAS BEEN REMOVED. ]