122 HORSE AND MAN. 



way would have no chance of doing their work. 

 Calks certainly do assist the animal to a certain 

 degree at the time, but they also inflict injuries from 

 which the horse is seldom free afterwards, as we 

 shall presently see. But even calks are not infallible. 

 I once saw in New York, within a distance of 

 two hundred yards, two horses lying dead in the 

 road, and another so much injured that it had 

 to be killed. In two of these cases the horse had 

 slipped, fallen, and the calk had become jammed in 

 the tram-rails. The result of the fall was that the 

 pastern was snapped, and in one case the hoof was 

 so twisted that the toe pointed to the rear. 



Mr. Bowditch, an American gentleman whose ac- 

 quaintance I had the pleasure of making, is one of 

 those men who think for themselves, and have the 

 courage to act upon their opinions, without any refer- 

 ence to precedent. Instead of making the shoe with 

 calks on the heels he only fastened on the toe a slight 

 semicircular piece of iron, leaving the rest of the 

 hoof to grow as Nature made it. During the winter, 

 when the roads were covered with glare ice, all the 

 precautions which he took against slipping consisted 

 of one small point on the toe. 



' I am afraid,' he writes, in a letter quoted by 

 4 Free Lance,' ' that I drive very hard down hill. I 

 am in the habit of driving cripples ; my friends have 



