A STRANGE ARGUMENT. 107 



taxes Mr. Baker with irreligion. ' Did not He who 

 formed the horse most surely intend that we should live 

 by one another ; and is it not civilisation that brought 

 about industry of every description ; and did not He 

 who ordereth all things put it into the heart of man 

 to study what could be done to protect the feet of 

 that useful animal the horse ? ' 



Which argument, being reduced to its elements, 

 means that the Creator made the horse's hoof unable 

 to do its work, so that farriers might gain a living 

 by nailing iron shoes upon it. As I can scarcely 

 expect any reader to believe that such fatuous non- 

 sense could be put forward as arguments, I must re- 

 fer him to the ' North Devon Journal ' of May 11, 1 882. 



There is now before me a cast of the off-fore 

 hoof of this very animal which was benighted and 

 irreligious enough to do its work without shoes when 

 the professional shoer said that it could not work 

 unshod ; or that, if it did, it was flying in the face of 

 Providence. The cast was taken in December 1882 — 

 i.e. eight months after the letter was written. 



In spite of the high lineage of the animal, the 

 hoof is not a first-rate one, the slope being too great. 

 From heel to heel the circumference of the wall is 

 thirteen inches ; from heel to toe it measures five 

 and a quarter inches, and across the quarters it is a 

 trifle more than four inches. 



