THE DOCKING OF HORSES’ TAILS
(Foreword to a Pamphlet, 1913.)
In the year A.D. 785 the Council of Celchyth—it seems—thus addressed
our ancestors:
“From the influence of a vile and unbecoming custom you deform
and mutilate your horses. . . . You cut off their tails; and
when you enjoy them uninjured and perfect, you choose rather to
maim and blemish them, so as to make them odious and disgustful
objects to all who see them. . . . This you are admonished to
renounce.”
Thus the Council of Celchyth in A.D. 785. The Council of Westminster in
A.D. 1913 has not yet been moved to admonish us, in the only way it
can—by law—to renounce this “vile and unbecoming custom” of docking
the tails of horses.
“Vile and unbecoming!” If it be not, still, vile to mutilate a
defenceless beast (sometimes at cost of acute suffering) for the sake of
a fashion, and of a market value dictated by that fashion; if it be not,
still, vile to deprive a very sensitive animal of its natural protection
against stinging insects, and against the exposure of what ought to be
protected—by what word shall we describe this practice? And if it be
not, still, unbecoming to destroy the untouched sweep and grace of one
of the most beautiful of creatures, and turn what is natural and decent
into the indecently grotesque—what significance has all our talk of
beauty, and all our so-called taste? The idea that a natural tail causes
carriage accidents is an exploded myth. The plea that a docked tail
saves trouble in cleaning is readily met, if need be, by shortening the
hair of the tail as far as the end of the “dock” or bone of the tail,
without touching the bone itself. The tail will then be as short as even
a stable hand can reasonably desire, the horse not mutilated, and the
hair ready to grow again.
In certain exceptional circumstances it may be necessary to dock a
horse. But, to make a fashion of it. . . .!
Ye gods! What a sense of beauty and of decency we must have, to approve
the miserable stumps left on our horses by this “disgustful” practice!
If we must indulge in mutilation for the sake of “beauty” let us perform
on ourselves; tattoo our faces, perforate our lips, flatten our
craniums, with other devices suitable to savages. But let us leave the
horse alone, who in his unmutilated state is far less in need of
“decoration” than we.
There are some customs that seem to spell despair. How far, indeed, are
we removed from savages, when we can blindly follow a custom so
thoughtless and tormenting, so stupid and ugly?