S. (continued 3)

STONE

.—This is a sporting term upon the TURF, and used in matches, plates, and sweepstakes, to denote or imply what weight each horse is to carry; that is, so many STONE, so many POUNDS. Every stone is fourteen pounds, and this is called "horseman's weight," in contra-distinction to a common stone, of eight pounds, by which meat, and other articles in trade, are sold.

STOAT

.—The stoat is a most mischievous little animal, very much resembling the weasel, and at a small distance, when running, not to be readily distinguished from each other. They abound near large farms surrounded with corn-ricks and faggot-piles, under each of which they ensure to a certainty never-failing protection. This diminutive pest, though but from two to three inches in heighth, (ten inches long, the tail half the length of its body, disgustingly hairy, and pointed with black, the edges of the ears and the toes both of a cream-coloured white,) is a most indefatigable, determined, and destructive enemy to GAME in all its forms, and POULTRY in all its branches.

STRAIN

.—See Sprain.

STRANGLES

—is a disorder to which young horses in general are always liable, and few or none escape, any more than children escape the small-pox, hooping-cough, or measles. It first displays itself in a heaviness of the head, a dulness of the eyes, a reluctance to action, a heat in the mouth, and a gradually declining appetite: this is followed by a swelling in the concavity beneath the under jaw, which being centrical, is sometimes surrounded by two or three tumefactions of smaller formation. These, in their progress to maturation, are frequently slow, and require patient perseverance in external application; for in all cases of suppuration, NATURE may be led, but will never be driven. During the time the matter is forming, and progressively getting into a state of concoction, an internal soreness of the throat correspondingly comes on, and is followed by an almost or total refusal of food. When it is ascertained that STRANGLES is the true face of the disorder, care must be taken to avoid bleeding, and every kind of medical evacuants, which would tend to embarrass Nature in her own efforts, and protract the crisis of disease; upon which the very safety of the horse, and his expeditious cure, entirely depend.

The strangles is a disorder standing in much greater need of nursing, and constant stable attendance, than the least medical interposition: the system requires to be kept up by art, and every nutritious attention in proportion as the appetite has been observed to decline. In its earliest stage, no attempt whatever should be made at repulsion, (by external astringents, or any spirituous application whatever;) on the contrary, hot emollient fomentations to the part, (with two sponges dipt in the decoction alternately for a quarter of an hour daily,) followed directly with stimulative poultices of a proper heat, repeated and patient offers of gruel and sweet-wort, mixed a little warm in a pail perfectly clean, and free from grease. Small quantities of mash (prepared of ground malt and bran, equal parts) should, at proper intervals, be placed in the manger: these and the gruel being constantly refused, the case will then require the additional adoption of a pectoral cordial ball, to be dissolved in a pint of gruel, and mildly insinuated about a third part with the horn at each time, till the whole is got down; and this should be repeated three times in every twenty-four hours, till the tumor is broke, and the crisis arrives; when which is observed, if the aperture is too small, it may be a little enlarged with the point of any instrument, that the matter may the more easily run off. To promote this, the poultice, covering a pledget of digestive ointment, should be continued for two or three days, when a cure is soon effected. Two or three doses of physic, or a course of alteratives, is always necessary after this disease.

STRANGURY

—is a temporary suppression of urine in horses, brought on more by the indiscretion of their riders or drivers, than any morbid affection, or constitutional defect in the horse. It may proceed from a spasmodic stricture upon the sphincter, or the neck of the bladder, occasioned by a too long retention of urine; in continuing an immoderate length of time on the road, or in the field, during which the distrest animal has no opportunity to stale; as well as from a slight inflammation, or tendency to tumefaction, in the kidnies; likewise from calculous concretions in the bladder, jaggy particles of which may irritate, and painfully plug up the urinary passages. Some horses feel great pain when labouring under the suppression, which, when judiciously managed, seldom proves more than a temporary inconvenience. Instantaneous bleeding will sometimes, by unloading the vessels, take off the stricture, and produce instantaneous effect. If the horse is perpetually straining to stale, evacuating only a few drops, or partial dribblings, two or three cloves of a separated onion, or divided garlic, may be insinuated, and left within each side of the sheath; in addition to which, a large sponge, dipt in very warm water, and repeatedly applied to the neighbouring parts, will assist; those local applications proving salutary and expeditious substitutes for the more tedious process of medicine internally administered. In cases of long continuance, and increasing emergency, more commanding means must be adopted; of which DIURETIC BALLS, with a drachm of camphire, and a few grains of opium incorporated with each, and periodically repeated, will be found to answer the most sanguine expectation.

STRING-HALT

.—This defect in a horse is a kind of spasmodic jerk, or sudden twitching of one or other of the hind-legs in action, and has been, in different opinions, attributed to various causes, and probably by none to the right; as there is no one disorder, disease, defect, or imperfection, to which the horse is liable, upon the origin, progress, or cure of which so little has been introduced. It is conjecturally said by some "to be brought on by sudden colds, after severe riding or hard labour, particularly by washing a horse when hot with cold water; a practice too common, and erroneously ridiculous; and that it may also be produced by blows or bruises near the hock." All this may be well upon the score of speculative amusement, but it forms no feature of scientific disquisition. The string-halt, from its appearance, must palpably originate in a previous distortion of some part of the ligamentary junction; or a preternatural contraction, (or partial rupture,) of its muscular appendages; in either or both of which, no regular road to relief can be adverted to without a much greater probability of repentant trouble and mortifying disappointment.

STUBBED

.—A horse is said to have sustained this injury, when in hunting amongst the stumps of newly cut coverts and underwood, he is punctured, cut, or bruised, in any part of the foot, coronet, or fetlock, by some of the infinity of stubs with which newly cut copses so plentifully abound. When accidents of this kind happen, the applications must depend entirely upon the magnitude of the injury received. In all slight cases, amounting to little more than simple laceration, Friar's balsam, tincture of myrrh, or even common vinegar, may soon close the mouths of the vessels, harden the surface, and effect a cure. Where swelling and inflammation ensue, poultices must follow; and WOUNDS must of course be treated as such. Although misfortunes may frequently occur, and cannot, even by the most circumspect, be always avoided, yet it is certain, more horses are stubbed by the folly and indiscretion of those who ride them, than by any casual or inevitable occurrences of the chase.

STUD

—is a term applicable to three distinct meanings, and is so used in its different significations. A stud, in its more extended acceptation, applies to an aggregate collection of horses, without giving priority to any particular sort; as the person having a great number of horses, is said to have a very large stud; but the term, in its divided and sub-divided state, proves more extensively comprehensive. One is in possession of a very expensive RACING STUD; another has a numerous STUD of HUNTERS; and a third, still more opulent, or still more fashionable, shall have a BREEDING STUD, to produce an annual supply for the two preceding. The management of each individually, is now so perfectly understood, by those perpetually engaged in the practice, that no information can be derived from literary or theoretic inculcation.

STUD-BOOK

—is the hereditary deposit of PEDIGREE, transmitted from one generation to another, and punctually preserved by the proprietor of every RACING STUD of eminence in the kingdom; in which may be retraced the exact lineal descent of each HORSE and MARE, from the earliest time in which racing blood began to bear a promise of estimation. From a most industrious and elaborate accumulative collection of these, Mr. Weatherby has given to the public, a full, clear, explanatory and well-authenticated pedigree of between four and five thousand of the best bred horses who have raced and covered in England, Scotland, and Ireland. This publication bears the title of "Weatherby's General Stud-Book;" and must, to every sportsman of taste and literature, prove a most useful and entertaining volume.

STUMBLING

—is so great an imperfection in a horse, that it affects his intrinsic worth, in proportion to the readiness with which it is perceived. Horses having short forehands, large heads, and thick shoulders, are the most subject to this defect of any other formation: those low at the point of the withers, (which is called being lower before than behind,) in addition to the deficiencies already mentioned, are the worst of stumblers; the whole forming such a combination of bad points, as not to leave one enlivening hope of reformation. A horse addicted to stumbling, occasions so many dreadful sensations to the rider, that he may almost as well encounter so many shocks of electricity. Those who unluckily get into possession of such, cannot separate too soon. The old sportsman never rides a stumbler more than once, which he thinks once too often.

SURBATING

—is a term getting into disuse, and with the last of the old school of farriery will in a few years be buried in total oblivion: this it well deserves to be, as a word without either meaning or derivation. Insignificant as it sounds, it has been, till within a very few years, used to signify a hoof so battered, bruised, and worn, with bad shoeing, bad shoes, and sometimes with no shoes at all, that the horse, having hardly any feet to stand upon, was then said to be surbated; which, in more explanatory and comprehensive language, is neither more or less than the sole of the foot so completely destroyed, (by the means before-mentioned,) that a horse in such situation is now said to be foot-foundered, who was formerly said to be surbated.

SURFEIT

.—In respect to the disease in horses so called, it seems, with most veterinary writers of the preceding and present time, to be an almost indefinite or undefined term. It is not only differently described, but attributed to various causes; without the superfluous investigation of which, it is only necessary to observe, that it is the effect of acrimonious morbidity in the blood, possessing gradational shades of progress, in a corresponding degree with what is denominated scurvy in the frame of the human species. In the first stage of what is professionally deemed SURFEIT, the horse's coat partially stares, and is in some parts nearly erect: under the raised parts is perceived a kind of blue dusty hue, which, not counteracted by medical means, or an increase of good healthy provender, soon degenerates to a palpable scurf; this continuing to extend itself over the surface, so hardens by time, that each becomes a pustule or eschar, which afterwards exfoliating, leaves alternate appearances of the bare skin and hair, somewhat similar to an advanced stage of the mange, to which species of disease it is, in fact, no very distant relation. Its progress to inveteracy is not the same in all subjects, as it will continue its ravages with fixed scales, or dry barky scabs, in some, but will emit a sharp serous ichor from others.

This discharge is generally of such a sharp and acrid property, that the violent itching it occasions, keeps the poor object in a state of incessant misery; for when the disorder is far advanced, the time is so constantly appropriated to the indispensible office of rubbing, (for the attainment of temporary relief,) that very little is afforded to the purpose of subsistence, should pasture be furnished in plenty; which, with such unfortunate and unprofitable subjects, is very rarely the case. The first step to cure, is to alter and enrich the property of the blood, by altering the aliment to a more nutritious and invigorating kind than it was before. In a week or ten days, when the frame is in a perceptible degree improved, a first bleeding may take place, followed by such antimonial alteratives, as may be found best adapted to the complexion of the case. Many instances there are, where, from long standing, and great malignancy, mercurial solutions, or vitriolic lotions, become so indispensibly necessary, that a cure cannot be perfectly insured without. When the system is in a certain degree restored, and visibly rising superior to the depredating effects of disease, bleeding may be repeated, and antimonial powders in mashes nightly administered, till indications of certain recovery appear, when a course of mild mercurial physic should be proceeded upon, that no doubt of obliteration may be entertained.

SWAINMOTE

—is a peculiar court, appertaining solely to the LAWS of a forest, and held three times within the year. In this court the Verderers preside in the official capacity of Judges; for although the Warden, or his deputy, may take their seats in the court, they have no judicial authority there. The court of Swainmote may enquire of offences, receive informations, and proceed to conviction; but judgment is not within the limits of this court; their province extends no farther than to hear and convict; judgment cannot be given but from the judgment-seat, where the Justice in Eyre presides as chief officer; and all associated with him, are called Justices of the Forest. This court being a Court of Record, can fine and imprison for offences within the forest; and therefore if the judgment is conceived erroneous, the record may be removed by writ of error into the Court of King's Bench.

SWEAT

—is the transpiration of perspirative matter through the skin by the effect of an increased circulation of the blood. This, in a moderate degree, is so conducive to the promotion of HEALTH, that those horses who regularly enjoy exercise to a proper state of perspiration, occasionally, and at proper times, are always in the highest condition; provided they are taken care of in proportion to the exercise each has had, or the work he has undergone. By the appearance of a horse in a high perspiration, immediate judgment may be formed of the property of his blood; and in a collateral degree, of the state of his health; for when a horse in good condition is under a profuse perspiration, the sweat is so congenially incorporated with the coat, (particularly if the horse is well bred,) that the hair lays so uniformly one way, that if the sun happens to shine, it seems a covering of satin: on the contrary, when a horse, after equal (or, in fact, much less) exertion, bears a greasy kind of perspiration upon the surface, with the coat turning in different directions, bearing a gross matted appearance, and of a faint fœtid effluvia, the blood is in an improper state, and the horse in very bad condition. Sweating a horse in the stable, by the administration of medicine, is a practice, the propriety of which has not hitherto been clearly ascertained; at least not perfectly demonstrated upon the true principles of science, uncontaminated by the obtrusive aid of deceptive speculation. See "Tartar Emetic."

SWEATING for the TURF

—is a sporting ceremony with training-grooms, to which, in their opinion, no small probable consequence is attached; as is fully confirmed by the invariable punctuality with which it is performed. The two reasons assigned for the necessity of this operation, is to preserve the WIND in its proper state of purity, and to prevent a superfluous and improper accumulation of FLESH. Horses in training are (in strict conformity with this intent) sweated at certain periods, or intervals, of six, seven or eight days each; which are brought nearer to, or delayed farther from each other, by the increasing or reduced state of the subject so to be sweated. The ceremony is performed in the morning, soon after the dawn of day, under the ancient superstitious opinion, that the AIR is then more pure than at any other part of the twenty-four hours; and with those whose department it is to execute the office, as much imaginary consequence appertains to it, as to making up the most important national dispatches at the principal office of Administration.

The horse intended to be sweated, is previously loaded with a profusion of sheets, quarter-pieces, and horse-cloths; the number and weight judiciously proportioned to the quantity of perspirative matter it is intended he should lose: when all which is completely fixed in the stable, he is then brought to the exercise ground, with a light or feather weight upon his back, where, after having been walked time sufficient to afford ample opportunities of unloading the carcase by excrementitious evacuation, he is permitted to start for a sweat of two, three, four or five miles, according to his age, his strength, his state of flesh, and the kind of race (in respect to distance) he is in training for; as well as the sort of course he is intended to run over. It is a most judicious and confirmed rule in sweating, that the horse is to begin at a very slow rate, and so continue till he has covered half the ground he is to go, when he should have his speed moderately increased during the third quarter, so that his fourth should be at a degree of speed very little short of his rate in racing.

Having ran his ground, and pulled up, he is walked in hand for a few minutes, to give time (in the language of the turf) for the sweat to come out, which, when the cloths are taken off, follows in copious streams that the animal seems to enjoy. At this moment two assistants are ready with each a thin wooden instrument, called a scraper, made of oak or ash, in shape resembling half the blade of a mowing scythe, (narrowed at the ends for the convenience of the hands,) with which they scrape the sweat from the neck, back, sides, belly, and quarters, so long as the least moisture is observed to appear; the moment which ceases, the scrapers are exchanged for wisps of soft straw, or separated hay-bands, 'till the body, and every part, is perfectly clean and refreshed. He is then furnished with dry sheets, hood, &c. brought to the ground for the purpose; when being led home to the stable, he is supplied with the necessary quantity of soft water, a little warm, previous to undergoing a regular and complete dressing, with greater nicety, than in the open air: when this is systematically gone through, he has a farther moderate supply of water, which is most commonly (though there are occasional deviations) followed by a warm and comfortable mash; upon depositing which in the manger, and setting the stable fair, the door is closed for a double period of the usual hours for going to stable when a horse has not been sweated; and although he undergoes the afternoon and evening routine of being fed, set fair, &c. he is neither stripped, or goes to exercise, any more on that day.

SWEATING of JOCKIES

—is a ceremony which every JOCKEY is under the necessity of going through when engaged to ride, and the horse is to carry less than his own natural weight. For the reduction of weight, jockies are obliged to encounter great inconveniencies, particularly when they have much to lose, and a very short time to lose it in. The means of reducing themselves to the weight required are various, and depend upon the greater or lesser quantity they wish to lose in a given time, and have to waste themselves accordingly. If they have but two or three pounds to lose, they will waste that in a single day's abstinence, and a morning and evening's walking: should four or five pounds be required, a gentle laxative, followed by two or three days extra walking, with an additional waistcoat or two, will generally carry the point: if more is necessary to be lost, it is sometimes a hazardous reduction, and great exertions are made to effect it: additional purgation, continued abstinence, increased perspiration, and almost perpetual exercise, all which, if persevered in to an extreme, tend to undermine the natural stamen by which the frame is supported, and absolutely saps the constitution. Instances have been numerous, where JOCKIES have undertaken to waste fourteen or sixteen pounds against the day of running; which having been at no great distance, they have, in addition to the evacuations already described, submitted their bodies to the debilitating FUMES of a hot-bed; and what is still more extraordinary, to be immersed in the stench and steam of a DUNGHILL to effect their purpose, which so completely relaxed the solids, and deranged the system of the natural economy, that consumption followed, and DEATH soon closed the scene.

SWELLED LEGS

.—See Legs Swelled, Humours, and Grease.

SWELLING in the Sheath or Groin

,—of a horse externally in good health, and without any predominant symptoms of pain or disquietude, is sometimes of little consequence; denoting no more than a general plethora, or distension of the vessels, which immediate bleeding, followed by gentle friction, and moderate evacuants, may be expected to remove: but if it makes its appearance at the crisis of any inflammatory disorder, of either liver, lungs, or kidnies, it may be considered a very unfavourable prognostic, and the worst is yet to come; though the writer has seen many cases of extreme danger, where the patients have recovered by persevering in the medical means which were previously known to be right.

SWAN

.—The swan, as the most majestic and distinguished of all water fowl, is honoured with royal protection: those who disturb their nests, destroy their eggs, or injure, wound, or cripple the swans, are liable to imprisonment for twelve months, and a fine at the pleasure of the King. The corporate body of the City of London, as CONSERVATORS of the River Thames, have an annual aquatic excursion to Staines, (which is the western extremity of their boundaries,) in the most pleasant and most plentiful season of the year, with colours flying, music playing, and all the appropriate parapharnalia of the first and most opulent city in the universe. All the swans upon the Thames, within their district, are under the protection of the Conservators; and this display of civic grandeur is perpetuated from one generation to another, by the appellation of "Swan-hopping day."