314 
REVIEW. 
Quid sil pulchruin, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non. — Hon, 
Plomley’s Improved Horse-Shoe. 
The shoe Mr. Plomley (of Maidstone) has sent us for examina- 
tion and trial, though it has some novel features about it, is evi- 
dently not what anybody would venture to designate a new 
production. Indeed, in the advanced state of the art of farriery in 
this the nineteenth century, he would be a clever fellow who could 
devise something in the shape of a horseshoe different from the 
multitudinous kinds and varieties of shoes that have come, either 
as realities or upon paper, at one time or another under our notice. 
We have but to turn over the pages of Lafosse, Solleysel, and one 
or two other writers on farriery, to feel persuaded that almost, if not 
quite, all the changes of figure and shape of which the piece of 
iron to be converted into a horseshoe admits of being fashioned 
into, have been rung, and some of them over and over again ; and 
therefore, we repeat, it is any thing but an easy task to set about 
framing what strictly and veritably deserves the appellation of a 
new horseshoe. 
Mr. Plomley, fully conscious that his shoe possesses no such 
pretensions, has simply named it his ‘‘Improved Horse-shoe.” 
And improved it certainly is in one important part ; — an improve- 
ment that will not fail to strike the attention of any veterinarian or 
farrier, assuredly the moment the shoe is presented to him upon 
the foot, if not while he holds the shoe in his hand. As will be 
seen by the wood engraving (stitched into our present Number), it 
is a broad-web shoe, made to give “ plenty of cover” to the sole of 
the foot, and so far differs nothing from such shoes as we are in the 
habit of putting upon flat and spraw or tender feet. But it is more 
than this. Its heels ( a , b — c, d), instead of terminating in the 
ordinary manner, are carried round towards the frog, and are so 
cut that they slant in lines parallel with the side of the frog; be- 
tween the heels of which body and those of the shoe no more than 
a “ finger’s breadth” of space is directed (in the prospectus) to be 
left : so that if the interspace between the heels of the shoe be 
