660 
REVIKW— RODWAY’S PATENT HORSESHOE. 
outer rim at the toe being worn completely away, there remains, 
in consequence of the intervention of the groove, no substance of 
iron to hold the fresh steeling. 
Passing over what is said about “ removing/’ as being placed 
in a sense so dubious as hardly to be tangible by us, and as a 
point of little importance here, we come to what, in our humble 
opinion, constitutes the main feature of Mr. Rodway’s shoe, and 
that which, if anything does, gives it a preference over the com- 
mon shoe ; viz., the prevention of slipping “ upon wooden pave- 
ments, or even upon roads partially covered with ice.” That a 
shoe with a broad deep groove in it, such as Mr. Rodway’s, must 
prevent a horse slipping to the same degree that he would in 
shoes with plane and smooth surfaces, is too evident, we think, 
to admit of any question. VVe had no doubt, from the first, that 
the patent possessed this advantage over the plain shoe ; and 
we find ourselves fully borne out in this opinion by the prac- 
tical testimony of our friend Mr. Henderson, veterinary surgeon 
to Her Majesty the Queen Dowager, who has been driving about 
town with his horse shod in Rodway’s shoes, and finds him 
decidedly safer upon wood pavements and slippery surfaces than 
he was in the shoes he wore before. What the operation of the 
groove may be upon “ roads partially covered with ice,” or how 
far the said groove may prove a substitute for what our patentee 
calls “the present clumsy and injurious practice of ‘turning 
up,'” we, until the frosty weather shall arrive, will not pre- 
tend to divine. 
“ As the concavity” (we quote from the prospectus) “forms an 
arch, Rodway’s patent shoe is quite as strong as that now in use : 
it also occasions much less friction, and therefore is as durable ; 
and will wear as long as any horse ought to remain without 
re-shod.” 
Since no part of a horseshoe takes, directly, any bearing save 
that which is in contact with the hoof, and since this, in Mr. 
Rodway’s shoe, is the outer rim alone, or but half of the arch of 
the concavity, it does not appear to us that Mr. R. can avail 
himself of the strength of the said arch. 
In conclusion, we learn from the prospectus that the patent 
shoe “ can be made by the same smiths who have made the 
common shoe, with little increase of trouble and expense.” The 
“ trouble” or labour, instead of being “ increased,” is greatly 
diminished. A clever fireman, with a boy to blow the bellows 
for him, will, single-handed — for he requires no striker — make 
his gross of shoes a-day. And as for the “expense,” that is, we 
understand, but two shillings the cvvt. more than that of common 
