THEIR FEED AND THEIR FEET. 



109 



pcniver of wagons used on roads, which might greatly 

 lessen the mischief, are not made, and hence the 

 horses are seldom free from diseases more or less serious 

 which may bevtraced directly to constant slipping and 

 shaking over slippery pavements. Among ignorant 

 owners, blind to their own interests, there is an 

 impression that " the work which kills one horse will 

 bring in money enough to buy another "; but expe- 

 rience has sufficiently shown the fallacy of this theory, 

 whether the overtaxed slave be a horse or a human 

 being. In towns and cities, the roads are and must 

 be paved, and the pavings at present are variously of 

 stone, wood, or asphalt, where the road is not macad- 

 amized. These pavements have, it would seem, each 

 its own peculiar dangers for the horses which use them, 

 and each has thus become a fruitful source of contro- 

 versy. If any one method be likely to supersede the 

 rest, the victory will probably be for the asphalt ; but 

 horses are found to slip seriously upon it, and the 

 falls so caused are, we are told, of a graver kind than 

 those on pavements of other sorts. All the propri- 

 etors of cabs, omnibuses, and railway vans have, it is 

 said, protested in a body against its use, but scarcely, 

 it would seem, to good purpose. Fresh contracts 

 have been signed for pavements of asphalt, and others 

 will probably follow. In the meanwhile horses have 

 to pass, perhaps in a single morning, from macadam- 

 ized roads to roads paved with asphalt, wood, or 

 stone — in other words, over roads made of widely 

 different materials, which call in each case for a differ- 

 ent action of the foot. On the other hand the hoof 



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