SHOEING CAVALRY HORSES IN INDIA. 
195 
English shoe lately ordered to be used in the cavalry, by 
expert English farriers, with “ all appliances and means to 
boot/’ 
Experience will soon show him that forge-carts are great 
trouble in a hilly, sandy, or boggy country, with unmade 
roads ; and where forge-carts can be altogether dispensed 
with, the better. 
I do not wish any one to adopt these methods of shoeing, 
under the circumstances I have mentioned, from my opinion. 
How is it that those who have gone to India to her Majesty’s 
and the Hon. Company’s regiments — although, to my know- 
ledge, brought up, like myself, in connexion with a private 
or army forge, continued these methods? Neither veterinary 
surgeons or farriers even have adopted hot shoeing, whatever 
other trifling modifications they have thought it necessary to 
occasionally introduce. I consider this fact sufficient proof 
they considered cold shoeing efficient. The recent orders 
for shoeing cavalry can only be carried out to the letter by 
hot shoeing. This is throwing additional expense on troop 
officers, who procure the shoes at present from the native 
blacksmith, in the bazaar attached to the regiment, and who 
find camels to carry these and other requisites of his troop. 
Hot shoeing requires permanent establishment of native 
blacksmiths, of at least 16 rupees, or £l 12s., per month 
(as European farriers do not work in the forge). The officers 
will see, by reference tovol. xxvi of the Veterinarian , for 1853, 
at pp. 126 and 234, that it did not originate with veterinary 
surgeons who had heen in Jndia — that all those have written 
against it, and others too. It is, in fact, only the wind-up of 
a controversy on the practices of shoeing, carried on, at 
intervals, for half a century. 
Thanks to the powers that have been, veterinary surgeons 
in India have had no connection with the forge ; not that it 
ttf hurts the character or reputation,” but veterinary surgeon 
and farrier are synonymous. The student brought up as a 
blacksmith acquires the low habits, manners, and customs of 
farriers : he may not do so — it depends on the individual ; 
but for this reason he is often cut by 
“ his cousins, aunts, and nieces,” 
Perhaps all — “ the breed, if it increases.” 
and by others too ; as a country smith styles himself “ vete- 
rinary surgeon,” notwithstanding the Charter. This only, I 
believe, is what Professor Simonds meant to imply in his 
introductory address of 1852. The bringing up the student 
as a blacksmith unfits the mind for acquiring medical know- 
ledge. 
