THEIR FEED AND THEIR FEET, 



125 



without any defense." Probably Mr. Clark thought 

 that, though we may consider it in its natural state; 

 few can ever so behold it, as all horses in civilized 

 countries are in greater or less degree brought under 

 artificial conditions. The plea is fallacious. The 

 horse is clearly intended by nature to serve as a 

 domesticated animal ; and so long as we do not in- 

 terfere with the proper functions of any part of itfi 

 body (and the abomination of bearing reins and 

 other such practices interfere with them grievously 

 and even fatally), we bring it under no conditions 

 which it was not designedly calculated to encounter. 

 Private owners and companies whose horses must be 

 numbered by troops are naturally irritated by the 

 accidents constantly occurring on smooth and slimy 

 pavements or on rough and hard stone or flint roads, 

 and in their disgust they now offered rewards for the 

 invention of a shoe which shall render the horse in- 

 different to the materials over which he has to pass, 

 and have clamored for a uniform system of pavements 

 in all towns. It seems strange indeed that no mis- 

 giving seems to cross their minds that they are taking 

 thought of the wrong surface, and that they are 

 scared by false terrors when they dread the contact 

 of the unshod hoof with sand, granite, flint, wood, or 

 asphalt. 



It can not, indeed, be too often repeated or too 

 strongly insisted on, that the foot of the horse in no 

 way needs to rest on soft and yielding surfaces. 

 The very opposite of this is the truth, and this 

 truth was perceived as clearly by Xenophon as by the 



