138 England's horses, 



which they were, or ought to have been, before the artificial 

 change of the centre of gravity, into a pair of bent and tottering 

 props, ready at the least trip or interruption to collapse beneath 

 their burthen. Thus the direct and immediate consequence of 

 the first false step is, that the horse becomes a stumbler, and is 

 continually subject to the danger of breaking his own knees and 

 his rider's neck. But further, the bending of the knee, however 

 slight, shortens, more or less, the height of the support afforded 

 to the fore quarter of the animal by the fore-leg ; and it is a well- 

 known fact, that if a weight be carried between two points, one of 

 which is lower than the other, as if a hand-barrow be borne 

 between a long and short man, the burthen falls more heavily 

 upon the latter. But without that bending of the knee the 

 animal is unable to compensate for the loss of power which he 

 now experiences in his true propellers ; the next step towards 

 destruction which he therefore takes, is to make up for this loss of 

 natural height in his anterior supporters, made necessary by that 

 compensation for the loss of power in his hind legs to which I 

 have just adverted, by straightening out his pasterns, and stand- 

 ing as it were on his toes. This restores the level, and relieves the 

 fore legs from that increased burthen to which the bending of the 

 knee had subjected them ; but it doubles the risk of stumbling, 

 and brings on directly every one of that multiplicity of diseases 

 to which the fore-foot and leg are so notoriously subject. 



For the pastern now, instead of discharging its natural office of 

 an oblique spring interposed between the hoof and the rest of the 

 limb for the prevention of excessive concussion, becomes a direct 

 and rigid prolongation of the shank, and so communicates to the 

 whole limb, and to that delicate plate of muscles which forms its 

 only attachment to the rest of the frame, the shock of every 

 stroke of the hoof against the ground. If we begin at the hoof, 

 and trace the direct consequences upwards, we shall find first that 

 the hoof, no longer resting flat on the ground, but bearing chiefly 

 on the toe, becomes liable to contraction, both directly from the 

 resistance of the iron shoe, and indirectly (which is the most 

 frequent symptom) from internal inflammation resulting from the 



