COST OF SHOEING. 441 



easily the horse owners are robbed, they desire a greater share in the 

 plunder, and see no reason why yet another shilling should not be imposed, 

 and this time for the benefit of the men who actually do the work. While the 

 veterinary profession has been struggling for a social status to the extent 

 of forbidding the most innocent form of advertisement, many of its mem- 

 bers keep shoeing forges in London where the most flagrant dishonesty is 

 practised. If that profession is really to be elevated there must be a total 

 divorce from the forge. 



" ' Owners will not be troubled with details ; they do not occasionally 

 check the account or notice the shoes. In vain do men like Captain Hayes 

 write practical works for horse owners, who will accept no bother. The 

 average gentleman roughly estimates so much a year for the stables, and, if 

 it is not largely exceeded, is content to shut his eyes to habitual robbery 

 until some of his rogues fall out and in unguarded moments speak the truth.' 



"The editor of the Field makes this letter the subject of a leading 

 article : 



" ' When the horse owner comes to realize that his coachman makes a 

 demand for a sum on each shoeing transaction equal to about twenty per 

 cent of the bill and claims another ten per cent on the account, it is surely 

 time that some notice were taken of the matter. It is an unfortunate fact 

 that what are called " upper servants " not only expect but demand com- 

 mission. The lady's maid harries the dressmaker ; the cook demands what 

 she is pleased to term her rights of all the purveyors of comestibles ; the 

 butler looks to the wine merchant and makes a tidy percentage out of the 

 stationery which in many cases he supplies to the house. Writing paper 

 and stamping are marvellously cheap nowadays, and the price the butler 

 puts down in his book and the sum he actually pays do not tally by a long 

 way. Of all servants, however, none are more rapacious, or, not to blink 

 the matter, the most dishonest, than stable servants. So long as matters 

 are left in the hands of the average coachman — there are individual excep- 

 tions, we know — he insists on a money payment in accordance with his 

 own scale for everything coming into the stable or coach house. Neither a 

 carriage, horse, set of harness nor stable utensils or " tools " can be bought 

 without the coachman desiring, nay, insisting, on " standing in." There is 

 not a saddler or harness maker in London or the provinces, not a corn mer- 

 chant, job master, and, according to our correspondent, not a veterinary 



