under their protection, yet in England he continues to labour under the curse of the iron shoes from which his Irish brethren are exempt. Here is a fitting opportunity for his patrons to widen out the sphere of their humane intervention in his favour. They must not say that the climate of England is so different from that of Ireland that they could not do what Irish donkeys can, for the climate of England is no moister than that of Ireland, and we have testimony that its roads are no worse. In Porto Rico, a Spanish island, horses go barefooted; whilst in Jamaica, in the same latitude and with the same climate, English civilisation (?) demands that they should be shod. Evidently these last could as well go without shoes as the former, and, evidently also, the English donkeys no more need shoeing than do the Irish ones. Climate has nothing to do with the question.
In the invasion of America, Hernan Cortes could not carry about (in a country destitute of roads) anvils, forges, and iron. Without the few dozen horses, which overawed the Aztecs so much that they took them for gods, and carved idols in their resemblance, which they worshipped, he would have been unable to penetrate many miles from the coast. On the performance of those few horses depended the subjugation of Mexico. They did their work and survived it, and from them descends the mustang, which still goes unshod. Horses are not indigenous to America—this was their first introduction; and here is a further proof that climate
