129 



CHAPTER XIV. 



LTJDGA.TE HILL ONLY RISES ABOUT FOUR FEET IS" EVERY 

 HU^sDRED — SOCIETIES — THE BEARING REIX ONLY REQUIRED 

 ON CRIPPLES. 



LuDGATE Hill is not Moirosi's Mountain, but, after 

 all, is only a gentle ascent of about half an inch in 

 the foot, over a length of about two hundred yards, 

 up which unshod omnibus horses would trot with a 

 full load in any weather. Yet there it must remain, 

 a chief thoroughfare in the heart of London, a 

 perennial cause of complaint, and of fear, disgust, 

 and injury to man and horse. It is of no use to 

 keep eternally grumbling at it, or proposing in- 

 efficient remedies ; it must be tackled in a rational 

 manner by not irrationally opposing two slippery 

 surfaces to each other, and then the difficulty would 

 be vanquished. 



Humane and well meaning, but it is to be feared 

 not eminently practical, people have formed them- 

 selves into various corporate bodies, either with the 

 view of protecting the horse from injury by man, or 

 else man from injury by the horse, when in the 

 legitimate exercise of his daily toil. Philanthropic 

 and philozoic individuals have taken the donkey 



