114 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 



A better and indeed an effectual mode of prevention 

 is to substitute for straw, wooden shavings, which form 

 a cheap, wholesome, clean, and comfortable bed. 



ON SHOEING. 



As a railway carriage is constructed on springs to 

 soften all ordinary jolts, and with buffers to alleviate any 

 violent concussion; as the human mind is gifted with 

 a buoyancy which enables it cheerfully to meet any 

 trifling vexation, and with sentiments of religion which 

 maintain its serenity under the severest afflictions, so do 

 the pastern above a horse's foot and the frog beneath 

 it protect the body of the animal from the continual 

 slight concussions and occasional severe ones to which, 

 in ordinary and extraordinary exertions, it is liable to 

 be subjected. 



The pastern, like the instep of those Spanish women 

 whose heels in walking scarcely touch the ground, 

 gives grace and elasticity to every step ; indeed, in the 

 walk, trot, canter, and gallop of a horse we clearly see 

 the spring of his pasterns softening the movements of 

 their own creation. 



But while the career of the body is thus rendered 



