270 
THE TRUE CHARACTER OF 
of practitioners of the present day, standing at the head of their 
profession, in further support of the necessity of teaching and 
qualifying young men in a branch of their art, which, in after-life, 
they will find a source of the greatest satisfaction to them, should 
it even not turn out any very great means of profit to them. 
What question in common colloquy with oar employers is more 
common than, “ Do you think my horse well shod. Sir?” And 
how is the veterinarian ignorant of all, except the mere super- 
ficies of the piece of workmanship, to answer in a manner credi- 
tably to himself, in the eyes of others conversant in the business, 
such an inquiry ? To really know when any thing is well done, I 
apprehend that a person must be, or have been, able to perform 
the thing himself. As an inspector, he may give a tolerably 
correct opinion ; but, rely upon it, the opinion of the inspector 
is, after all, nothing like equal to that of the artificer himself. 
There are in every trade certain points in the manufacture which 
meet only the eye of the workman, or, at least, by him only are 
regarded in their proper light — commensurate censure or praise 
passed upon them, or adequate allowances granted for their 
committal. Nothing in the eye of an unprofessional person 
amounts to so unpardonable a fault in a farrier as to 6< prick” 
his horse; whereas, every shoeing-smith and practical veterina- 
rian well knows that, either from accident or the nature of the 
foot, an occurrence of the kind may happen iu the hands of the 
skilfullest workman. Professor Coleman held the farrier to be 
in fault whenever the horse he was in the habit of shoeing had 
a thrush, but always felt disposed to pardon an act of pricking 
the foot. And when every circumstance comes to be considered 
connected with shoeing, our only surprise is, that horses are 
not pricked much oftener than they are : the slender make of the 
nail itself, and its consequent liability to bend ; the precise course 
the nail has to take through the hoof, its correctly taking of 
which depends all upon the pitch given to it, and upon the ma- 
gic blow of the hammer ; the unsteadiness of some horses ; the 
alarm and fright, and consequent sudden jerk of the limb or mo- 
tion of body that may happen in the act of driving the nail ; I 
repeat, when all these circumstances come to be mentioned, the 
only matter of wonder appear^to be, that pricking is not a 
