INDIFFERENCE OF HORSE OWNERS. 177 



system of shoeing is simply ruining them. As we 

 have seen, there is, at least, one intelligent firm 

 who have stuck to the Charlier system for more 

 than seven years, and have made their success with 

 it public through the Press. To all appearance they 

 might almost as well have remained silent on the 

 subject. Who is there that can boast of having put 

 their enterprise and experience to profit? Echo 

 answers, Who ? May we be allowed to ask, whence 

 arises such indifference on a question of millions 

 annually? If submitted to Lord Dundreary, he 

 would probably say : ' It is one of those things 

 no fellow can understand ; ' and this is the only 

 solution the writer can propose as a corollary to that 

 of ' Impecuniosus,' which is, ' because everyone does 

 it, I suppose ; ' and to that of < Santa Fe,' who says : 

 * Fortunately our ancestors did not shoe their dogs 

 and cats, or, in all probability, most of us would do 

 so in the present day.' The enterprising London 

 firm in question liberally offered their horses for in- 

 spection, and no one went to see them ! One gentle- 

 man said : ' I have got along for the last thirty-five 

 years, and I shall not change now.' He had some- 

 thing of either the Mede or Persian about him, and 

 there are too many like him. We may say, en 

 passant, that his horses were about as badly shod as 

 any that can be found nowadays, and were, every 

 one of them, unsound from this very cause ; but he 

 did not want to knoiv any better. 



A propos of horses, we will look at the lightly- 

 built and lightly-limbed mules, with hoofs scarcely 



