THE ANGLE OF TRACTION, ETC. 221 



horses painfully shoving along, at every step they 

 take, the movable articulation of the point of the 

 shoulder against a trace which should be attached 

 opposite to the immovable point of the shoulder- 

 blade, where it would not cause the slightest incon- 

 venience, and all this perhaps whilst the driver is 

 congratulating himself on his traces being in the cor- 

 rect angle of traction. Is it not passing strange, too, 

 that the ' Artillerist's Manual,' which gives the admir- 

 able rule we hftve twice quoted at p. 151, should pre- 

 sent us, at p. 130, with a drawing of an ofF-leader, 

 showing the trace attached to the hames exactly oppo- 

 site to the shoulder-joint ? And where is it that horses 

 get most frequently sore necks from the collar % Why, 

 just within a few inches of this very same unlucky 

 spot, either higher up or lower down ; or, on the other 

 hand, opposite the other movable end — that is, at the 

 top of the shoulder-blade. We would request our 

 readers to satisfy themselves by inspection as to the 

 rotatory motion of the shoulder-blade alluded to here. 

 It is best seen in foals and young horses, especially 

 mares, and very clearly indeed in donkeys. In old 

 horses, especially those that have been crippled by 

 injudicious harnessing, the whole shoulder stiffens and 

 loses its natural play, so that it is less easy to detect, 

 although it always exists in some degree. 



When the trace is attached to the collar very low 

 down, the upper end of the latter will very frequently 

 lose all contact with the upper part of the shoulder, 

 and gape forwards. This, of course, has not escaped 

 observation, and two remedies have been devised, 

 which apparently remedy the fault, but in fact only dis- 

 guise it; indeed one of them, at least, aggravates instead 

 of curing the real evil. The one remedy consists in 



