178 THE HUNTING ITEIJ) 



carrying queen was most lavish in tlie larder. Nothing, 

 perhaps, can equal the gossip of a public-house keeping 

 country smith, and we often wonder at gentlemen tolerating 

 such nuisances on their estates. They are the ruin of servants, 

 and the general haunts of idleness. It is an odd thing, 

 but let the beer be ever so good and strong and plentiful 

 at the castle or the hall, the servants will draw to the 

 public-house to spend their own mone}- in trash. As this 

 cannot be for the sake of the drink, it must be for the 

 sake of the gossip, and let anj- tolerator of such a nuisance 

 picture to himself what the conversation is likely to run 

 upon. We have seen many a lazy skulking dog dragging 

 his legs along to the public-house, who could never " find 

 time "' to go to church. 



W'ith gratitude we say it, the Roj-al \'eterinary College has 

 done much to eradicate a breed of men who were at once 

 the curse of horseflesh and the country, and in lieu of the 

 botching, bungling, ignorant, self-sufficient, drunken, daring, 

 kill or cure, fear-nought horse and cow-leeches of twenty or 

 five-and-twenty }-ears ago. we have an educated race of men, 

 combining the business of shoers and veterinary surgeons, 

 who can be called in when a Groom or Master's knowledge is 

 exhausted or insufficient. In consequence of the distribution 

 of veterinary surgeons through the country, we have got a 

 better set of working smiths — men with some idea of the 

 anatomy and delicac\' of a horse's foot, and not fellows 

 who cut and wrench and hammer and tear, as if it had 

 no more feeling than a vice or an anvil. Londoners have 

 no idea what an old countrv smith was like ; they would 

 do anything — set a limb, shoe a horse, make a key, mend 

 a gun, sharpen a plough-share, or prescribe for horse, dog, 

 cow, and even man. The division between whitesmith and 

 blacksmith is still unknown in the greater part of the 

 kingdom. 



