and pernicious system, when their masters have differed from them, they have on purpose lamed horses, and imputed the fault to the shoes, after having in vain tried, by every sort of invention and lies, to discredit the use of them.’
Mr. Lupton, M.R.C.V.S., only three years since approved the opinion that ‘the master who makes the welfare of his steed subservient to the idle prejudices of his groom, is fitly punished in the lengthened period of his animal’s compulsory idleness, appropriately finished by the payment of a long bill to the veterinary surgeon.’ And, of farriers, he says: ‘Farriers ought to go through a course of instruction previously to being allowed to operate upon structures, the anatomy, physiology, and economic uses of which they have never studied, and, consequently, never understood.’ When people have been having this kind of thing continually impressed upon them for such a length of time, it seems strange that they have not long since taken the management of the part of the horse that requires the greatest supervision and intelligence out of the hands of two such ignorant sets of people.
‘One horse can wear out four pairs of feet.’ That is because the feet are ill treated. Mr. John Bright has discovered, through thirty-four years’ experience, and a loss of 3OOl. in the shape of printing, that ‘farmers do not buy books!’ One would hardly have thought that. We know that they not only buy papers, but that they are also extensive contributors to them.
