120 HORSES: 



inches long curled round the toe, and that this piece 

 of iron is all that is needed even in the case of an 

 animal whose feet have been abused for a series of 

 years. When nothing is left but this fragment of 

 the traditional shoe, and when even this fragment 

 has, as in Massachusetts and elsewhere, been retained 

 for the fore feet only, it is incredible that men should 

 fail to ask what the use of this relic of the old sys- 

 tem may be. Donkeys in Ireland are unshod, and 

 they work on roads at least as rough, hard, slimy, and 

 slippery as those of England. " Can one really be- 

 lieve," asks " Free Lance," " that the animal which is 

 endowed with the greater speed and power should 

 have worse feet than his inferior in both respects?" 

 To such a question one answer only can be given ; 

 and the lesson may be learned by any one who will 

 take the trouble to go to the wilds of Exmoor or 

 Dartmoor. There, as in the Orkneys and on the 

 Welsh hills and in many parts of the continent of 

 Europe, horses run unshod over rocks, through 

 ravines, and up or down precipitous ridges. " Yet all 

 this," Mr. Douglas remarks, " is done without diffi- 

 culty, and to the evident advantage of their hoofs, 

 for these animals never suffer from contracted feet, or 

 from corns, sand-cracks, etc., until they become civil- 

 ized and have been shod." Mr. Douglas, it is true, 

 holds that civilization involves the need of a shoe of 

 some sort for horses as for men ; Mr. Mayhew advo- 

 cates the use of the tip, and, as we have said, it is 

 not in human nature to stop short at such a point as 

 this. It is obvious that if the complete abandon- 



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