118 HORSE AND MAN. 



strongly on this subject, but it is ever before my 

 eyes. I cannot move out of doors without being 

 obliged to witness horses on all sides of me suffering 

 from bearing-reins or bad shoeing. The very day I 

 penned these lines, when going down Cannon Street, 

 I saw a horse fall so suddenly that the pole of the 

 vehicle in rear passed through the back of the four- 

 wheeler he was drawing. The poor animal never 

 tripped ; his legs flew from under him to the right, 

 and he fell upon his left side, the wheels of the cab 

 being only stopped by his body. The horse was shod 

 with shoes that had high calks. 



4 This is no solitary instance. On the very Friday 

 previous, when walking from Holborn Circus to New- 

 man Street, Oxford Street, about a mile, I saw no less 

 than five cab-horses down, all of them falling on their 

 sides as if they had been shot dead. The streets, 

 after being watered, or a slight shower having fallen, 

 are as slippery as if they were covered with soft soap, 

 and horses with high-heeled calks and wide-webbed 

 shoes are quite helpless upon the granite pavement. 

 These which I saw fall could not get up until rugs 

 had been spread in front of them, so that they could 

 get a foothold and keep it.' 



Any Londoner who uses his eyes must have seen 

 many such accidents. Two which I witnessed im- 

 pressed themselves very strongly on my mind. 



