236 THE PERFECT HORSE. 



barbarous and indefensible act has been committed, to 

 the premature breaking-down of many valuable horses, 

 the actual maiming of not a few, and the painful 

 torturing of some. 



No form of flesh is more sensitive to pain than the 

 inner substance of the horse's foot. Its power of sen- 

 sitiveness is like that which lies sleeping under a human 

 finger-nail. To protect this from hurt and undue press- 

 ure. Nature has put this hard, horny shield, — viz., the 

 outer sole ; and yet I have often sat and seen an igno- 

 rant smith hack and hew and pare aAvay this natural 

 protection until he could actually indent it with his fin- 

 gers, and little drops of blood oozed forth from within. 

 Imagine the feelings of the horse after having been put 

 into the shafts ! He was driven forth into the dust and 

 gravel of the streets, or sent pounding along a stone 

 pavement, with nothing but the thinnest possible fila- 

 ment of horn-substance left between the exquisite inner 

 organization of the foot, and the dirt, gravel, and stones 

 on which he was travelling. And yet this method of 

 procedure is not only tolerated by gentlemen of wealth 

 and character, but vindicated and held up as the 

 model (!) method of preparing the foot for the emer- 

 gencies of actual service. 



''The horn," says a recent writer, "is secreted from 

 the living surface; and myriads of beautiful vascular 

 and sensitive tufts dependent from this surface enter 

 the horn-fibres to a certain depth, and play an important 

 part in the formation of the sole. The newly-formed 



