and locality have not that influence over the hoof which they are vulgarly supposed to have.
It is being continually argued that the horse, as we have him, must not be looked upon as being in his natural state, but in an artificial one. Surely a little reflection should lead educated people to perceive that it is we ourselves who have, by continually striving against Nature, unnecessarily and insanely nursed him into an artificial state. People lose sight of the undeniable fact that he was created expressly as a servant for man, and as such was destined to become a captive and a domesticated animal. Simple domestication would not render him artificial; but pampering, continual doctoring, and adding to, or subtracting from, his frame will do so.
The Great Architect of the Universe neither made too little, nor too much, nor did he assign to the horse any inadequate members. Other quadrupeds possess both collar-bones and a gall-bladder, the horse has neither; but no one, however sapient, can detect that this inscrutable economy of construction has rendered him the less powerful, the less fleet, or the less enduring. It was needful that his head should be of a certain size to lodge the many organs which it contains, to provide leverage for the jaw with its powerful muscles, &c.; and Mr. Fearnley, formerly Principal of and Lecturer on Veterinary Surgery at the Edinburgh Veterinary College, writing, in March last year, a treatise on the structure of the horse, tells us that the head is
