66 EXAMINATION OF HORSES 



If the ruinous process sketched yesterday is to be averted, 

 it is evident that it can only be so by keeping the heels 

 and quarters low by careful rasping of the horn at those 

 parts, and the thinnest possible piece of iron put upon 

 them. We have also seen what indispensable services 

 the arch renders ; and yet we see the smith weakening it 

 by paring with the drawing knife. Taking into consi- 

 deration the vast wealth invested in horseflesh in this 

 country and the enormous deterioration of this capital 

 through lameness in the fore feet, which everybody sees 

 and admits, there could be no better service rendered to 

 the horse universe, and therefore to the State, than the 

 passing of an Act of Parliament rendering it a misde- 

 meanour for any person in shoeing a horse to reduce the 

 thickness of his soles or frog, or to put under his heels 

 and quarters iron exceeding a defined thickness, except 

 under the certificate of a qualified veterinary surgeon, 

 which should, after defining the horse, explain the need 

 for the same. Horses, like every other property, are 

 national property, and a man owning them mediately 

 has no more right to deface them than he has to deface 

 the coin of the realm, which he also owns only mediately. 

 '* What's mine's my own," is still the creed, not only of 

 the vulgar, but of those who ought at least to know the 

 riidime?its of political economy. 



Again, referring to our classification, we find flat soles 

 are the next anomaly of shape. We have already arrived 

 at the main conclusion regarding this defect. The causes 

 of flat soles are three : — 



