i70 On the General Treatment of the Feet. 



graded condition, which the arbitrariness of custom, and the effects 

 of vulgar prejudice, have reduced him to ? Or rather, would not a 

 humane and enlightened policy suggest a mode of treatment diame- 

 trically opposite to this ? 



Let shoeing smiths, therefore, that are sober men and good work- 

 men, be duly encouraged, and like other good mechanics let them be 

 enabled, by the exercise of their trade, to earn as much as jobbing 

 smiths, and the other lower kind of artists are able to do ; and we 

 shall soon see a different race of these men arise, to wipe away the 

 odium, which their craft has been indiscriminately exposed to, for 

 ages. For, may we not see daily instances of people giving cheer- 

 fully to a lock-smith or jobbing smith, in fact, to the vilest and most 

 worthless mechanic, especially if he have the character of being 

 clever, for the employment of one half hour, such a sum as they 

 would pay grudgingly to a shoeing smith for five or six hours hard 

 labour. 



In this respect, indeed, there is an absurdity in the public mind, 

 not easily to be accounted for. For, few are so ignorant, as not to 

 be fully sensible, and readily to admit, that the shoeing smith has a 

 very valuable piece of mechanism entrusted to his care, which he is 

 expected to keep in order; whilst he is refused, at the same time, 

 the greatest of all human incentives to industry, a proper reward foj^* 

 bis labour. 



I throw out these hints the more freely and readily, because I haver 

 po interest in the advice contained in them. At the same time, I am 

 perfectly well aware, that the subject is, on many accounts, one of 

 a very delicate kind, and which would require to be treated upon a 

 plan more profound, and comprehensive, than I have either the de- 



