EDITORIAL REMARKS. 
477 
situations to accept of a tempting offer made him by the East In- 
dia Company to go to India to take the superintendence and charge 
of their stud department. Subsequently, we hear of him living 
in princely style and affluence in Hindostan, looked up to as an 
oracle on all horse matters ; and it is not many years since some 
account of his death reached us, but of which we have too indis- 
tinct a recollection at this moment to trust ourselves to give our 
readers any particulars. 
Of the five posthumous papers of this celebrated veterinarian 
which have fallen into our hands, all in the late Mr. Moorcroft’s 
own, neat, regular, and legible hand-writing, four are letters; 
the other appears to us to have been intended for a prospectus, 
headed as it is “ On Shoeing Horses,” and containing a concise 
explanation of the principle and application of a new horseshoe 
— the parallel-seated shoe , as he called it — which Mr. Moorcroft 
warmly espoused and recommended. And as the letter of the ear- 
liest date has immediate reference to this shoe, we have placed the 
prospectus first in order. 
As at the time that Mr. Coleman, on the secession of Mr. Moor- 
croft, came into sole possession of the professorship at the Veteri- 
nary College, the parallel-seated shoe — or seated shoe, as it was 
afterwards for shortness called — stood, on account of the cele- 
brity of its recommender, high in public favour, the new, and 
now sole Professor, at once gave it his best consideration : accord- 
ingly, we find Coleman, in his lectures, annually propounding to 
his pupils the construction and application of the seated shoe, his 
views on the utility of which differing so completely as they 
did from those entertained by Mr. Moorcroft, will be read with in- 
terest on the present occasion. “ Mr. Moorcroft,” said Mr. Cole- 
man, “ recommended a shoe with a flat circle, intended to be in 
contact with the crust, from which it was bevelled off from the sole ; 
and for its application directed the crust and sole to be cut down 
upon the same level. The first difficulty that occurs in its appli- 
cation is the nicety required in fitting it to the crust ; since the 
crust not only varies in thickness in different horses, but at differ- 
ent parts of the same hoof. It is thicker at the anterior part 
than at the heels, and thicker at the outside than on the inside 
quarter; and in different horses (in these respects,) affording an 
endless variety, But, admitting that the crust was uniformly 
of the same thickness in different hoofs, only observe what the 
effect must be of paring the hoof as is recommended. Long 
before the shoe is worn out the hoof will have grown at top 
and become in consequence expanded at bottom ; so that at the 
expiration of a fortnight or three weeks, instead of the crust be- 
VOL. XIX. 3 T 
