WHICH IS WORTH THE MORE?
By Editor
IN speaking of the training of the celebrated mare, Nancy Hanks, which recently trotted a mile in 2:04, the Voice draws an important lesson. It occurs to us as we read, which is worth the more, our children or our animals? How do you look at it, reader? The Voice says:— There are important scientific and physiological laws that are observed carefully and studied closely, when the improvement of stock is concerned. One of these days we shall learn that similar laws apply with at least equal power to mankind. The young colt which bids fair to become a great trotter is taken in hand by the trainer almost as soon as it can walk. Its feeding is carefully considered. Its surroundings are attentively looked after. Care is taken to make it courageous, even-tempered, ambitious. The law of heredity and the law of environment are both brought to bear to make the perfect horse. Men have found that the colt of illustrious pedigree may be ruined by bad treatment, and, on the other hand, they have found that a colt of no pedigree may sometime develop into an equine genius that makes a pedigree for all its future progeny. If every boy and girl that comes into the world could during one generation have as much intelligent care bestowed upon him or her as Nancy Hanks had as a colt, it would be a wonderful world thirty-three years hence. There are thousands of men to-day who devote five times as much care to the proper treatment of their live stock as they devote to the proper training of their children, and pleuropneumonia makes a great deal bigger stir in Congress than alcoholism ever did. But now we're getting Nancy Hanks into politics, and she deserves a better fate.