552 
CONFORMATION OF HORSES. 
sion. I fear sir, I have trespassed on the patience of your 
readers. I would not have done so, but for the importance 
of the subject. I have only two things more to notice. I 
read in your Journal for September and October, 1849, Mr. 
A. Cherry’s practical observations, and for whose opinion 
even I would have respect, and does he attempt at pp. 502, 
503, 571, or in April, 1850, p. 800, uniformity? No. He knew 
better, and so do I ; therefore I must cordially agree with him 
in his practical observations, that it depends entirely on the 
state of the horses’ feet, in what manner they should be shod. 
A horse-shoe certainly admits of no redundancy. If I had 
to get my bread as master or art workman in a London forge, 
I should just do as others do similarly situated ; but with 
cavalry, I should vary my practise, if I was allowed to do so, 
according to the kind of regimental horses I had to practise 
on, and the country in which I might be situated. 
I recollect seeing English farriers bungling at shoeing mules 
in Portugal, which I saw the Portuguese shoe with ease. I 
did not then think, that in after life it would be my fate to 
see the hoof left strong, the sole pared flat, and the thin 
Asiatic shoe laid flat upon it, without injury to the feet, even 
without temporary lameness, as is done by irregular cavalry 
in India, and, except in the use of the German shoe and nail, 
by regular cavalry: uniformity was practised in my time, as 
regarded leaving plenty of hoof, and driving the nails low 
and obliquely outwards. I am sorry to say, this cannot be 
practised with uniformity in mid-Europe, and least so in 
England, from causes stated. 
In 1825, the late Mr. Goodwin showed me a shoe the then 
Master of the Horse had selected for use on the fine large 
horses belonging to His Majesty. I should not have been 
afraid to have turned it upside down, except when the horse 
had a thin sole. Now I do not know how many changes of 
ministers there have been since, or their denominations ; but 
this I know, the Royal horses have had the infliction of the 
following horse-shoes, — Tory, Whig, Reform, Conservative, 
Peelite, Free Trade, Protection, but not Radical, that would 
be too vulgar for royal hprses’ feet : so much for shoes. As 
to feet, the high foot of the zebra may be ruined if you ex- 
pose it to the causes I have stated. Any one might have 
seen the difference in the feet of the young and old zebras 
in the late Mr. Wombwell’s menagerie. The sole of the latter 
had descended to flatness. 
