The Intimate Bond (31 page)

Figure 15.2
  Smithfield Market in 1855. Superstock.

The Plight of Working Animals

As the Industrial Revolution took hold, horse-powered agricultural machinery such as plows and threshers gradually improved agricultural productivity. Some horse-drawn plows were said to decrease plowing time by as much as a third. Most farm and city horses toiled for long hours and were often worked to death. The market for working horseflesh was enormous. Horse fairs flourished throughout Britain, coinciding with a growing demand for driving horses to haul traps and heavier conveyances, and for large animals for heavy agriculture. In time, breeders crossed heavy farm horses with lighter mares, producing fast, agile animals that had both strength and stamina. As early as 1669, the combination of the two forms produced the animals that pulled fast horse-drawn coaches. By the end of Charles II's reign, in 1685, three express coaches a week ran from London to all major towns, capable of covering eighty kilometers (fifty miles) a day, when conditions were favorable. When the mail coach service began toward the end of the eighteenth century, the network relied on regularly spaced coaching inns, which kept large numbers of horses for coaches that carried both goods and passengers.

Working horses suffered from often-brutal treatment. Overburdened draft animals died in harness, cast into ditches to serve as dog meat when they collapsed from exhaustion. Drivers carried enormous whips to lash their beasts. Even horses used by the aristocracy often suffered harsh treatment. Worn-out animals were slaughtered indiscriminately, their hides worth more than their flesh. A life of overwork awaited almost all horses, except those that contributed to their owner's self-esteem or social prestige. The courage and nobility of such animals were much praised, especially when more humane training methods came into common use during the seventeenth century. But everywhere, horses died by the thousand each year. They might have been grand beasts with graceful motions, but no one was in any doubt that they were subservient to humans, for as eighteenth-century zoologist Thomas Pennant put it, the horse “was endowed with every quality that can make it subservient to the uses of mankind.”
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Dogs were ubiquitous, used for protecting private property. Often-fierce mastiffs, muzzled during the day, roamed as guard dogs at night. They attacked people, killed sheep, and ran freely in the streets, chasing passersby. Christ's and Trinity Colleges in Cambridge even employed a servant to keep dogs out of their chapels. Dogs pulled carts and sleds, and occasionally plows. Sheepdogs and other working animals were admired for their skills, often even loved. Even so, many were hanged or drowned when no longer useful, and even cooked down for their grease. Many families kept watchdogs, especially farmers and shopkeepers. Until as late as the sixteenth century, beasts owned by the poor and stray dogs had been regarded as filthy vermin, their behavior the subject of common sayings such as “as surly as a butcher's dog.” Dogs became a symbol of gluttony, of lust and disorder. The distinction tended to reflect social classes among people.

Most dogs lived with working households and often fended for themselves. Stray canines became pests, so much so that theater owners employed men to chase them out of auditoriums. Dogs were so numerous that a canine tax was proposed without success again and again; there were with perhaps a million of them in Britain during the late eighteenth century. (There were about 9.16 million people
in England and Wales in 1801.) Finally, in 1796, concern over rabies epidemics led to a tax aimed at eliminating the dogs of the poor, which were considered less controlled than those of the aristocracy. Draconian measures combated rabies. Thousands of unlicensed dogs perished after the passing of the 1796 law. Roaming animals were considered unsanitary, also violent, when let out by their owners to forage for food. All this was a manifestation of a growing gulf between animals and humans. But some breeds were much respected by aristocratic and working-class owners for their ferocity and stamina, notably the bulldog, “excelling in fight, victorious over their enemies, undaunted in death.”
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Racing Horseflesh

Fox hunting and flat racing (a race over a level course of fixed distance), the lure of speed in the saddle, were irresistible to both country gentlemen and the nobility. As we shall see, there were close emotional and practical links between these field sports and the seemingly glamorous life of an aristocratic cavalry officer. There was something about the close-packed cavalry charge that was thought to bring out the best in both horse and rider. But this prolonged love affair—it was often nothing less—began on the hunting field and racecourse.

Both fox hunting and flat racing had long histories in Europe. The Romans brought new breeds of foxhounds to Britain in 43
CE
. By 1340, medieval lords regularly hunted foxes. King Edward I is said to have founded the first royal foxhound pack in that year. Fox hunting became more popular with the passing of the Enclosure Acts that fenced off commonly held land, which was when jumping became a regular part of the sport. With the advent of railroads in the 1830s, the sport became increasingly popular with the aristocracy, many of whom “rode to hounds” from an early age. This created a demand for fast horses, and to a popular misconception that riding fast after foxes prepared one to lead cavalry into battle. Thoroughbred horses were especially suitable for fox hunting, bred as they were for speed and endurance, so the two sports grew hand in hand.

Flat racing flourished in England as early as 1174, when 6.4-kilometer (4-mile) races became popular near Smithfield, just outside London.
¹⁰
Horse racing flourished at markets and fairs, receiving royal support from the animal-loving King Charles II and later seventeenth- and eighteenth-century monarchs, who patronized what had become a popular sport. The breeding of thoroughbred racehorses began in earnest when wealthy owners imported three stallions from the Near East: the Byerley Turk during the 1680s, the Darley Arabian in 1704, and the Godolphin Arabian in 1729. About 160 Eastern stallions ultimately contributed to the creation of thoroughbreds, horses bred for the racecourse. In 1791, the
General Stud Book
became the official register of British horses, and remains so today. Selective breeding for speed and racing ability led to races being shortened progressively and to some extraordinary racehorses. Perhaps the most famous was Eclipse, an undefeated stallion bred in 1764 by Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, which won eighteen races, and walked 2,250 kilometers (1,400 miles) to get to the race meetings into the bargain. He retired to stud after a career
of seventeen months, having no competition. He then sired between three hundred fifty and four hundred winners. Eclipse is said to be ancestral to 95 percent of contemporary English thoroughbreds.

Figure 15.3
  The racehorse Eclipse as painted by George Stubbs, 1770. Superstock.

Beloved Pets

An emerging and passionate interest in hunting and racehorses coincided with a significant change in human behavior toward highly prized animals. Triggered by the philosophies and scientific discoveries of the Enlightenment during the second half of the eighteenth century, this coincided with a rising enthusiasm for dogs and cats as companions, friends, and even confidants. Devoted owners created miniature cenotaphs for them; portraits of aristocratic owners often included their favorite pets as symbols of power. Equestrian portraits of monarchs and other important figures depicted them with their horses or on horseback—their faithful steeds. The eighteenth century saw a fashion for animal portraits. English artist George Stubbs (1724–1806) painted highly realistic portraits of magnificent racehorses that depicted the powerful anatomy of the beast, posed with its owner, trainer, or even a groom. Pride of ownership, of achievement on the racecourse or while fox hunting at a gallop, created an entire genre of eighteenth-century art. Dogs and cats, painted with or without their owners, sometimes displayed their characters to the artist by a pose, even by an expression in the eyes.
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Dogs and cats on the streets were one thing, cherished pets another. For centuries, wealthy aristocrats prized their greyhounds and foxhounds for their fidelity. Effigies of medieval knights lie in cathedrals with a faithful hound at their feet. Gentlewomen cosseted small lap dogs such as spaniels and pugs as companions. Pets became a fashion with royalty as early as Elizabethan times. King James I was obsessed with hounds. He was said to love his dogs more than his subjects. Half a century later, Charles II was famous for his spaniels; he played with them at the Privy Council table while conducting government business. In some aristocratic households addicted to hunting, the foxhounds were better treated than the servants, and enjoyed a much better diet
than local villagers. Large country houses teemed with animals of all kinds, even with litters of cats in chairs. Dog droppings and marrow bones littered the hall. A cacophony of barking and howling kept guests awake at night.

Feline fortunes changed gradually after medieval times, especially in crowded cities, where humans and cats lived in close juxtaposition.
¹²
Many wealthier households apparently kept them as pets, both as mousers and as companions. The earliest-known cat show, using the term loosely, was held at the St. Giles Fair at Winchester, England, in 1598. We know almost nothing about the event, but it was the remote ancestor of the cat shows of today. The seventeenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Laud, is said to have imported one of the first tabby cats into England, at a time when they cost the huge sum of five pounds (about eight dollars) each. His contemporary the French statesman Cardinal Richelieu cherished large numbers of pet cats, constructing special quarters for them and even providing for their upkeep in his will. Cats crossed to what became the United States as early as the seventeenth century.

“Tirrany or Crueltie Towards Any Bruite Creature”

By 1700, pet keeping was commonplace among affluent families. This obsession with pet keeping burgeoned during the nineteenth century with the population explosion in cities and the emergence of an urban middle class. With this development came notions that animals had characters and individual personalities, which entitled at least some of them to moral treatment. This, and a concern with the evils of live vivisection, generated laws protecting animals against mistreatment. A law passed in Ireland in 1635 prohibited the plucking of wool from sheep instead of clipping or shearing them. The Colony of Massachusetts passed the Body of Liberties Laws in 1641, which stated that “No man shall exercise any tirrany or Crueltie towards any bruite Creature which are usuallie kep for man's use.”
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During the early nineteenth century, repeated efforts to pass legislation to protect working animals died in the House of Commons. One journalist wrote that “England is the hell
of dumb animals.”
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None other than Queen Victoria remarked to the home secretary as late as 1868 that “the English are inclined to be more cruel to animals than some other civilized nations.”
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In the case of pit ponies (used underground in coal mines) and other urban working animals, she was right.

The greatest suffering of all befell animals destined to labor in the streets or to be slaughtered in butchers' stalls. There was a grim, mercenary callousness to the way in which horses were worked to death, pigs fattened for the butcher, and donkeys and ponies worked in coal mines, mills, and later railroad yards. As the historian Jason Hribal wrote in 2003, “The farms, factories, roads, forest, and mines have been their sites of production. Here they have manufactured hair, milk, flesh, and power for the farm, the factory, and mine owners. And they are unwaged.”
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The comparison with the sufferings of working people in factories, slums, and the countryside was irresistible.

Even greater cruelties awaited horses drafted into battle as cavalry steeds and pack animals. In times when virtually everything depended on animal power, this included warfare. Images of prancing warhorses and cavalry charging into battle evoked powerful emotions of nationalism and military triumph, but as we shall see, when medieval ways of going to war confronted firepower generated by the Industrial Revolution, reality was gruesomely different from image.

CHAPTER 16

Victims of Military Insanity

Thundering hooves, closely packed steeds, drawn lances and sabers, brilliantly caparisoned riders sweeping in an irresistible attack—the dream of a mass cavalry charge intoxicated aristocratic leaders raised on field sports. Born to a life of power and display, they rode to hounds at a gallop and bred thoroughbreds on their country estates. Combat and the exultation of victory resembled the rush of a successful hunt. Trumpets, plumes, and all the pomp of the military life turned war on horseback into what has been called an “aristocratic trade.” Dazzling uniforms, beautifully turned out horses, and the precision of cavalry maneuvers stirred powerful yearnings for command, for military glory.