96 
ON THE HORSES OF ENGLAND. 
To conclude, I have not hesitated to lay this error of my own 
and of two other professional brethren before the profession at large, 
feeling confident that it is only by means of equal and mutual can- 
dour that an insight into cases “ few and far between” can be ac- 
quired. Should I be asked the question, Who are those who par- 
ticipated in your error? I simply reply, that I do not choose to give 
the information ; for if I think proper to fling my own blunders and 
want of judgment before the public, “ that’s my business;” but it 
is not my business to expose and sneer at the mistakes of others, 
at any rate those who make them, when they in implicit confidence 
and unreserved good-will endeavour to assist a brother-practitioner 
with their opinions. Were this practice a little more frequently 
resorted to, were we now-and-then to condemn ourselves instead of 
carping at and detracting from the acquirements of those with 
whom we may be acting in concert, we should do more to advance 
the status of our profession than all the privileges and immunities 
at the present moment so anxiously sought for can accomplish. 
ON THE HORSES OF ENGLAND. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRESENT AND GROWING SCARCITY OF 
GOOD HORSES IN ENGLAND. ALSO ON BREEDING HORSES; 
WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL 
BREEDING ESTABLISHMENT. 
By William Goodwin, M.R.C.S., 
Veterinary Surgeon to the Queen. 
It is an admitted fact by all those who are conversant with the 
state of the horse-market in England, that good horses were never 
known to be so scarce as they now are. It is unnecessary to dilate 
upon the importance of remedying such an evil, and I therefore 
proceed at once to endeavour to point out the causes which have, 
only of late years, combined to produce such a scarcity. They will, 
in my opinion, be found in the circumstances of this country hav- 
ing been drained of too many of its three-parts-bred mares, which 
has diminished the production considerably, it being now the con- 
stant practice of foreign dealers to attend all the best fairs, and 
purchase by far too many of the first-class horses. 
Comparatively speaking, there is not the same scarcity existing 
in other classes of horses ; for I believe London never possessed 
more beautiful carriage-horses than are now to be seen in the me- 
tropolis during its season. Cart-horses are as plentiful as formerly; 
troop-horses are about the same price that they have been for years. 
