236 HORSE AND MAN. 



productive of disease when regularly worn, and by 

 its mechanical action greatly hinders horses from 

 employing their full strength. For the above 

 reasons — on the plea of utility as well as humanity 

 ■ — its use should be discontinued.' 



This document is signed, not by ' theorists ' or ' hu- 

 manitarians,' nor by ignorant and impulsive women, 

 but by upwards of a hundred well-known veterinary 

 surgeons, six of whom are professors in the veterinary 

 colleges of London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, &c. Twenty- 

 four of them are Fellows of the Eoyal College of 

 Veterinary Surgeons, and the remainder are Members 

 of the College. 



Several accompanied their signatures with addi- 

 tional remarks. 



Professor Axe, of the Eoyal Veterinary College, 

 London, makes the following statement : ' Eleven years' 

 experience in the post-mortem house and the dissecting- 

 room of our college has made me acquainted with a 

 variety of structural alterations and deformities arising 

 from this cause, and which must have rendered life a 

 burden and shortened its span. . . . If the public could 

 see and understand the effects of its insidious work on 

 the respiratory and other organs, I do not think that 

 its use would be long continued by them.' 



Mr. W. G. Taylor, of Nottingham, in allusion 

 to the adjective ' tight ' as applied to these reins, 



