96 CLIPPING HOESES. 



It is well known that clipped horses are very apt to scratch 

 themselves at fences, and get thorns in their skin ; and for this 

 reason the absurd practice is carried out of not clipping the 

 legs or belly, but only the body. Such an animal may please 

 " a judge's eye," as the dealer facetiously informs us, but we 

 must confess it does not please ours. 



I have been induced to make some remarks on this 

 subject, from the amount of injury which we have witnessed 

 inflicted on cab and cart horses in Edinburgh during the 

 present winter. Many of these animals are clipped all over, 

 but very few escape the removal of hair from the heels and 

 legs. The result of this is exposure of the skin to wet and 

 dirt, causing chronic inflammation, ulceration, deep fissures 

 in the heels, attacks of grease, swelling of the legs, and stiff- 

 ness of the joints, &c. Some horses have lost their lives by 

 it, and we unhesitatingly say that the operation is attended 

 in its' results with the infliction of much cruelty. 



Both clipping and singeing are comparatively modern 

 practices. Sir Francis Head tells us that, " about fifty years 

 ago, during the Peninsular war, it was observed that the 

 Spanish muleteers gave to the animals they had charge of 

 great apparent relief by rudely shearing off the hair that 

 covered their bodies ; and, on the idea being imported into 

 England, our hunting men, principally at Melton, commenced 

 the practice by clipping, at a cost of about five guineas, their 

 hunters. This operation, which in its infancy occupied four 

 or five days, was succeeded by the practice of shaving, which 

 in about as many hours left the animal as bare as the hide 

 of a pig that had just been killed, scalded, and scraped. 

 This latter operation, however, was found to be attended 

 with two opposite disadvantages, for, if perpetrated too soon, 

 it required to be repeated, or rather to be succeeded by clip- 

 ping ; and if delayed till the growth of the thick coat had 



