ON SHOEING HORSES. 
609 
is not a word of truth in it; but you see how the cat has jumped. 
You and the writer of the Caliphs have, it appears, been march¬ 
ing with Caliph Gloag to Coventry. The good Caliph has been 
unintentionally leading you “ragamuffins where you will get pep¬ 
pered.” As to the writer himself, he is like the picture in the 
Royal Exhibition last year. The best, a butcher-boy teaching 
that jaws can open and shut, while an urchin is trying to fillip a 
cherry (which the critic described as being inimitably done) into 
the said space; but missing often, only bespatters with juice a 
variety of face, at best, perhaps, not very “ divine.” 
I think you are right, Ned; we shall be worse thought of than 
the Royal Chartists are by certain professors. Go on we must; 
this is the age of progress; we cannot be made bondages of by 
masters. The smiths and wheelwrights stand their ground in the 
rural districts. Even when the blacksmith committed a crime that 
sentenced him to death, the villagers solicited to be allowed to 
hang two weavers instead. Goldsmith wrote. 
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, 
Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear; 
but I say he shall. I shall go by the up-train and take those that 
like to go with me; those that like may go by the clown- train, 
leather aprons, &c. 
That’s right, Jack; we thought our practices would not, at 
all events, be made into principles. But in No. 261 of The 
Veterinarian, pp. 502, sixth line from bottom, to 503, this is 
done. How, where, and at what times, are we to attend said 
teacher? We learn this during our apprenticeship, but not the 
principles ; we know not why we do so and so, though masters 
know, who never practised what is stated. Of course, principles 
and practice are two very different things, that can, and do, sepa¬ 
rately exist: the former from the functions of the foot; while the 
latter are frequently at variance with the former, instead of always 
being founded upon them, as shewn by previous quotations from 
the great Caliph’s lectures; and 1 am willing to stand or fall by 
the issue. I shall quote the blacksmith’s sign fairly, “ agreeable to 
the laws of nature,” and admitting of no deviation. The perfec¬ 
tion of this art, like others, would, of necessity, be that which 
came nearest to nature ; or, strictly speaking, it would not be art. 
It so happens I am not in a position contrary to that stated at 
pp. 571, 572, read it any how you like. It remains to be proved 
yet, which is the road of improvement. I had the moral courage, 
when younger by twenty-five years, to tell the great Caliph that 
he broke down; when, forgetting his own definition of a principle, 
he attempted to make “ the crust being in contact with the shoe, 
and the sole not, principlesand then eat his own words, by say- 
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