THE horse's rescue. 195 



shoer, as soon as be can learn to weld on a cork on the 

 toe in a bungling way, buys some stock and sets up 

 the business of slaughtering the horse. He works on 

 no principle, either right or wrong. He brags, and his 

 friends brag for him, and* they know less, if it is pos- 

 sible, than horses. He is safe enough if they all get 

 crippled on his hands. The creator has made such a 

 botch of making the horse, he can't eat or drink water. 

 All kinds of grain will make him stiff or lame in all 

 deforces, sonie on one foot, some on two, some on all, 

 in all degrees, and yet he must eat or he will die. In 

 some places they are nailing on cast shoes. In this 

 case the foot must be cut to jSt the shoe. 



Of ail the damned fools that I ever heard talk, the 

 biggest is men that claim that horses are stiffened by 

 w^hat they eat or drink. There are so many degrees 

 on the same horses, and on the same horse ; and these 

 men gather around me in herds almost daily, teaching 

 me these w6nderful truths they claim to know, and all 

 driving stiff and lame horses in some degree. If 

 what they say is true, they are a careless, ignorant lot 

 of fools, and their talk bears witness against them- 

 selves, and it needs no other proof, for their horses are 

 enough to condemn them. They are nearly all crip- 

 pled in a greater or less degree. That needs no proof. 

 It crops out all over the land in bold relief ; and if 

 these horses are stiffened by grain and water, why do 

 they scurf the shoer so much for spoiling their horses 

 and run to him to get them cured — the same place 

 where they get them spoilt? It is curious how many 

 tunes can be played on one of these lying bugles when 

 some men get to blowing them. 



