

By Captain ARTHUR RICKARDS. 



(Read February 26th, 1900 J 



> Y the kindness of the President, and by the courtesy of 

 our able Secretary, Mr. Richardson, I am able to 

 say a few words on the subject of horseshoes. 



This is a matter in which in time past I have 

 much interested myself, and it is a great pleasure 

 to me to have the opportunity of speaking on the 

 subject to such an audience as that now around me. 

 I desire in commencement to say that I in no 

 way wish to unsay anything that anyone else 

 amongst us may have said ; nor to raise any uncomfortable 

 feeling or animosity towards myself or any other. 



At an early meeting in last year, I think on the gih March, my 

 attention was much arrested by an exhibit then placed before us, 

 and which it was suggested we should accept as a " Roman 

 horseshoe," and I am quite sure, from the able and lucid manner 

 in which it was introduced to us, that the gentleman who made 

 the introduction quite honestly believed that it might be so. It 

 did not, however, strike me quite in the same manner, but as I 

 had only been a member of the Dorset Field Club for from five 

 minutes previously, I did not feel that I had any right to put 



