INTEODUCTORY. 213 



show that we are not addicted to pedantry, we have 

 determined to begin in the middle, and with what 

 forms the most important Hnk between the two— 

 namely, the trace. And for this reason, more espe- 

 cially with the trace, because the differences in the 

 size of draught-horsos and the diameter or heights of 

 wheels require that the ti-aces should be adjusted to 

 certain lengths, and at a certain angle with the horizon. 

 This same angle of traction, as it is called, has been 

 made the subject of many learned controversies, which 

 seem not to have led to any definite result as yet, 

 probably because the men who were directly concerned 

 in the question of draught, and knew something about 

 horses, being on the other hand for the most part 

 totally ignorant of mathematics, and prone to restive- 

 ness and to wheeling suddenly round and bolting at 

 the very first sight of the 2^07is asinoricm and other 

 ox-fences that abound in Euclidshire — because these 

 men, we say, went to learned professors who knew a 

 great deal about mathematics, but nothing at all about 

 horses, and very little practically about roads or car- 

 riages. If the poor horses themselves could have been 

 consulted, we should probably have arrived long ago 

 at something more definite ; and even a moderately 

 intelligent veterinary might have put us on the right 

 track, if he had evor paid attention to the subject 

 otherwise than by attempting to heal raw necks and 

 ulcerated shoulders by methods not uniformly success- 

 ful. And as we have arrived at this point, and pro- 

 bably wounded the just susceptibilities of no end of 

 people, why should we not go a step farther and sug- 

 gest to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 



