59f> 
COMPARATIVE EFFECTS OF THE 
harness. But enough on this subject — the bandage — for the 
present. The occurrence, however, was not without its benefit, 
for it cured me of trusting to “ Ned,” or further home-made doc- 
toring. We were both young, and, as is too often the case at 
that period of life, in the warmth of our imagination little dis- 
posed to advert patiently to causes and effects. In fact, the 
gradational means by which disease is to be obliterated are at 
that time little thought of ; the mind is fixed upon the cure which 
is at once anticipated, as was the case here, but it was “no go.” 
Still the mention of Ned*, which is made with regard and 
respect in recollection of nine years' faithful and valuable service, 
brings me at once to that part of my subject on which it appears 
some diversity of opinion prevails — I mean deep firing. Ned 
was brought up in the stables of that much renowned sports- 
man and horseman, the late John Lockley, who being, no doubt, 
of opinion that the /xay/^Tov /xafivjp,# (as Plato calls the chief 
science) of the doctoring art was vested in himself, would admit 
neither farrier nor veterinary surgeon into his stables, nor a doctor 
into his house — in fact, his own life fell a sacrifice to the preju- 
dices he entertained^*. Consequently he operated on his own 
horses, and was very fond of applying the irons. But how did 
he apply them? Did he, as elegantly expressed by Mr. Spooner, 
attempt to exhibit the “adroitness with which he delineated the 
feather, and the star, and the crescent on the integument of his 
suffering patient?” Not he, indeed; neither am I able to say 
how he became acquainted with the geography of the parts which 
he travelled over, their anatomy, and so forth. But this I am 
enabled to say, that the awful scorings and deep lesions from the 
iron on horses so valuable as his, were the subject of much 
surprise amongst his brother sportsmen, but by no means dis- 
composing to himself. “I must make my horses sound,” he 
would say, “to carry fifteen stone, and this will never be done, 
when the injury has been extensive, by what is called neat firing, 
performed apparently by a knitting-needle.” Hundreds of sports- 
men in the midland counties, now alive, can vouch for what I 
am relating, and must remember, amongst many others, that ce- 
lebrated hunter. Ready , whose legs he had so disfigured, but who 
so many years distinguished himself under Mr. Hanford, a much 
heavier man than himself, and who gave him three hundred gui- 
* This excellent servant, whose name is Brainsford, was for many years 
landlord of the head inn at Painswick, between Cheltenham and Bath, and I 
hope he is still in the same situation. 
f Having had a fall with hounds in Staffordshire, in his 80th year, which 
produced inward bleeding, he died within twenty-four hours, having declined 
medical aid until it was too late. 
