INTRODUCTION OF SHOEING JND ITS EFFECTS. 6ii 



ous, and their feet shod, carriages are largely employed, 

 and the streets of the towns are wide — Peking, for ex- 

 ample. In the south, however, where horses are extremely 

 scarce and water-carriage convenient, as at Canton, the 

 streets are very narrow and unfit for the passage of 

 wheeled vehicles, and all the land transport has to be per- 

 formed by men. 



With the introduction of shoeing, a gradual revolu- 

 tion in the social economy of nations, especially those of 

 a commercial tendency, commenced, and benefits began 

 to be derived equivalent to the employment of a power- 

 ful moving machine, capable of being utilized as never 

 machine was before. The many important uses for 

 which the horse was adapted duly developed themselves ; 

 long distances could be quickly travelled, day after day, 

 without injury to those hitherto vulnerable organs, the 

 feet ; and roads, slowly and expensively made, often 

 wrung out of the enforced labour of slaves, were not now 

 required to save the hoofs of horses. Heavy loads could 

 be transported almost continuously by the same team at 

 an accelerated pace, w^ithout demanding the tedious in- 

 tervention of the levers and rollers of not long before ; 

 the horse's powers were also increased by this simple 

 means to a degree that nothing else ever devised could 

 have done ; while its strength was husbanded, and the 

 painfulness of its oftentimes onerous duties was perhaps 

 rendered less acute. 



Land-trafhc, where shoeing is not resorted to, and 

 where few other animals besides the horse or mule are 

 employed, is generally at a low ebb, because everything 



must be carried on their backs ; and as, without some 



29 * 



