OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH HOUSES. 
511 
but I have taken many long journeys in diligences, when, my 
place having always been in the coupe, for the purpose, partly, of 
observing the horses at work in them, I am enabled to produce 
facts, which are greatly preferable to theory. 
I will begin with diligence horses. I have only seen two bro- 
ken- winded horses at work in them ; only one high-blower, and 
not one roarer. Your worthy Professor, be it remembered, saw 
only one broken-winded horse in a journey of several thousand miles 
on the continent. But I do not see three in the year, in the far- 
mers’ carts, or in those of the public carriers, which are very nu- 
merous here ; or in the carts of those men who get their living by 
carting goods for hire, which are also numerous ; or among the 
hackneys ridden to market by the farmers. As to roarers, although 
the word poussif is used to express broken- wind, I doubt whether 
one to express roaring would be found amongst the generality of 
French horse owners, from the rarity of the complaint. Then, 
lame horses ! how rare they are in France ; those lame in the feet 
especially! “But cannot you account for it!” said a friend of mine 
to me the other day, who is a clever mechanic. I replied that “the 
comparatively slow pace at which French horses travel must have 
very much to do with it.” “ No doubt it has was his reply : 
“ but, depend upon it, the French system of shoeing contributes 
much to their soundness, as far as the feet are concerned by the 
superior method of nailing. With us, the nail must go as the 
nail-hole gives it the direction. Here, the smith can drive it in 
that direction which he thinks best suited to the peculiar form of 
the foot, because the nail-hole is large enough to afford him this 
choice.” Surely, Mr. Editor, there must be some charm, some talis- 
manic effect in this French shoeing. It is enough to give one the 
horrors to see a French smith — I beg his pardon, a French mare - 
chal — cutting away at a horse’s foot with a buttress a yard long, 
and impelled from his shoulder with an Herculean force. Then, 
look at his shoe ; it is a combination of bad workmanship with 
clumsiness ; and, to produce the climax, see him standing behind 
the foot, hammering in nails after the manner of a carpenter when 
driving them into an oaken plank ! But to what part of the foot 
is the buttress employed! To the sole ! yes. To the frog! a little. 
To open the heel ! never ; neither is a drawing-knife to be found 
in his box. And, then, the foot, after this unwieldy piece of iron 
is affixed to it, is any care taken of it in the stable ! Is it stopped! 
why, the word “ stopping,” as applied to horses’ feet, is not in a 
Frenchman’s vocabulary : and physic ! “ Do you never physic 
your horses!” said I to Mr. Roberts, of the Royal Hotel, Calais, 
who once kept the White Horse, Fetter Lane, London. “I did so, 
when I first came to France,” he replied ; “ but, finding no one 
