says Lord Erskine, only extended to carrying on the fair work of horses, to the very latest period of labour, instead of destroying them, when old or disabled, I should approve instead of condemning it; but it is most notorious, that with the value of such animals, all care of them is generally at an end, and you see them (I speak literally, and of a systematic abuse) sinking and dying under loads, which no man living would have set the same horse to, when in the meridian of his strength and youth. This horrid abuse, which appears at first view to be incapable of aggravation, is, nevertheless, most shockingly aggravated when the period arrives at which one would think cruelty must necessarily cease; when exhausted Nature is ready to bestow the deliverance of death. But even then, a new and most atrocious system of torture commences, which has been proved to my satisfaction, and that of my friend Mr. Jekyll, on the information of a worthy magistrate, who called our attention to the abuse. It is
The Traffic of the Naggers, as it is called; a hideous practice which still exists. Among the immense number of letters which Lord Erskine received from persons of great respectability, in favour of the animal protection bill, his lordship referred to one where the particulars of this common but horrid practice were detailed. The traffic consists in buying up old horses for dogs' meat. These horses are kept without food, until there be a demand for the commodity. This correspondent informed Lord Erskine, that he had frequently seen these wretched animals devouring the remains of their dead companions, and even eating their own dung, to allay the gnawing pains of hunger.
