512 EVIL PRACTICES IN NAILING, [BOOK III. 



security of the shoe. Indeed, good and proper 

 iron does not readily incur either of these objec- 

 tionable forms, nor will it break or chip off at the 

 fuller-edge (when such a plan is adopted) like ordi- 

 nary metal. 



Driving the nails home properly includes no 

 small share of skill. Formerly, he who could drive 

 highest into the crust without occasioning lameness 

 was reckoned the best workman, whilst the French 

 method of driving both into sole and crust is an 

 error in the contrary extreme, and argues no little 

 slovenliness and disregard of the construction of 

 the sensible part of the foot. As may be seen and 

 accounted for by reference to the section of a foot 

 at page 443, immediate lameness is not always 

 likely to succeed the pricking of the sensible part 

 at cc, but matter may form underneath, and lame- 

 ness ensue at a future day, unless upon removal of 

 the nail it issue forth at once in the shape of 

 blood. The hoof, which may have lost the elastic 

 substance of this sensible part through age or infir- 

 mities, (at c cc) in the section just referred to, when 

 the wall and coffin bone touch each other, then is 

 the horse commonly " pricked to the quick" at 

 once, and goes crippling away from the smithy. 



According to the most improved modern mode 

 of punching and nailing, the nail should enter at 

 the conjunction, nearly, of the sole and crust, so 

 as to penetrate the whole thickness of the crust, 

 (as shown in the figure of Goldfinch's shoe, at page 

 501,) and be driven slanting outwards, so that the 



