PAMPERING ANIMALS.
A French experience may be added to the evidence lately produced on the subject of health and the out-of-doors life, especially for farm and domestic animals. The most perfectly equipped country estate I ever saw was in a rather bleak district to the East of Paris. The chief organizer was a cousin of the famous Dreyfus. Incidentally, he had an invincible belief in the excellence of British stock. His dogs were English, his sheep Southdown, his cattle Shorthorn. After many sorts of experiment, very scientifically conducted, he came to the conclusion that all coddling was bad, especially for horses. He had at the time of my visit a famous steeplechaser which lived out and looked as rough and uncared for as any mongrel farm animal, but it was thus stronger and healthier than it would have been under any other conditions. Men who used to buy 'bus horses, held to be past their work, had similar experience. A year in an open field completely set them up again in health and strength. Perhaps more men and women would be wise to subject themselves to a like hard treatment. One of the public men to whom we owe most--at least in connexion with the land—saved his life by sleeping in the open air. He said to me once : " There is as much difference between sleeping in the open air and sleeping in a room as between sleeping in a room with the windows open or shut." Who knows ! On the other hand, some countrymen of a past generation lived to a hundred or thereabouts, though they slept every night in a box bedstead, on purpose made to
exclude the air! * * * • •
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