80 HORSE AND MAN. 



have clung to the smooth and slippery surface, has 

 been cut away by the farrier, while the under surface 

 of the shoe has been rubbed down by friction, until 

 it offers only a flat polished metal surface, seldom 

 less than half an inch in width, and often more. Of 

 course the shoe slips and the horse falls. The india- 

 rubber pad would have given the horse a firm foot- 

 ing, and much more so would the natural safety pad 

 or frog. 



A similar sight to that which is described below 

 may be seen on Ludgate Hill on any wet day. The 

 writer is Lieut. W. Douglas, late of the 10th Hussars, 

 and therefore a competent observer. The passage 

 occurs in the preface to his book on horseshoeing, 

 and is quoted by ' Free Lance ' in ' Horses and Eoads : ' 



' Passing down Ludgate Hill one day, my atten- 

 tion was drawn to the pitiful condition of a horse in 

 the shafts of a large waggon. The poor animal was 

 not drawing the load, but was being driven down the 

 descent by the crushing weight behind ; and utterly 

 unable, from the manner in which it was shod, to 

 withstand the pressure, it had gathered its hind legs 

 well under and its fore legs in advance of its body, in 

 a hopeless struggle to avert the fall which it too 

 evidently knew was at hand. 



' Never did I witness such a picture of powerless 

 terror as that horse presented, as with eyes starting, 



