170 HORSES AND ROADS. 



fancy prices are continually being paid for horses, 

 especially ladies' horses and park hacks. 



Another class of horse that often commands a 

 long price is the carriage-horse of the ' upper ten.' 

 As a rule, the accusation that they get early worn 

 out by hard work would hardly lie ; yet at what 

 a comparatively early age they become ' screws,' 

 through the bearing-rein and their shoeing. Their 

 work lies largely over stone paving, the evils of 

 which, to shod horses, Mr. Fearnley and others so 

 justly denounce. One purpose of the bearing-rein 

 is avowedly to give lofty action, not graceful action, 

 which, on the contrary, it prevents. Horses with 

 their heads rigidly attached to their tails are con- 

 tinually tossing up their heads, in which no doubt 

 they find a passing relief alternately for their various 

 excruciating pains, which must extend from the tail 

 to the teeth. The throwing up of the head neces- 

 sarily tends to raise their fore feet higher, but not 

 with regularity, as may be seen by observation. 

 This abnormal high action causes so much the 

 greater shock on the feet when they come down on 

 the stone, and this brings their shod hoofs to grief. 

 Mr. Douglas says : — ' The evil effects of concussion, 

 of the firm, hard blows from the ground, striking 

 through the iron up a horse's leg that is being 

 driven fast along the road, cannot he over-estimated. 

 Such common results as splints, spavins, and ring- 

 bones, I have already referred to elsewhere, as well 

 as to another and more fatal disease, known as 

 foundered feet, due to the same cause — concussion. 



