80 REMARKS ON THE GOODENOUGIl SHOE. 
General Omnibus Company are sliocl on tliat system; and I 
also visited about a fortnight sinee the works of Messrs, 
llobinson and Cottam at Battersea^ where the Goodenougld^ 
shoe is manufaetured^ and I need hardly say that I 'vvas 
reeeived by Mr. Cottam (whom alone I saw) in the most 
courteous manner. He very kindly showed me over their 
large establishment fully explaining every particular relating 
to the mode of making the shoe in question^ the machinery 
used for which is most ingenious,, complicated, and exten¬ 
sive. Mr. Cottam also favoured me with a copy of a small 
pamphlet, in which the advantages presumed to accrue from 
tlie adoption of the new system of shoeing are set forth in 
such a manner that, if experience warranted the statements 
made, the inventor of it unquestionably deserves not only 
the praise, but also the thanks of the civilised world for the 
boon thereby bestowed upon it. 
Now I should be very sorry, in discussing this subject, to 
give the slightest offence either to Mr. Goodenough or to 
Messrs. Robinson and Cottam, and wish it therefore to be 
distinctly understood that my only desire is to examine care¬ 
fully and practically the statements put forth in the pam¬ 
phlet in question, in order to ascertain how far they agree 
with my own experience, which extends over a period of 
upwards of thirty years, more than twenty-five of which 
were spent in connection with one of the largest shoeing 
establishments in London. 
In the first place, then, I have yet to learn upon what estab¬ 
lished ground the shoe in question specially merits the appel¬ 
lation of the Humane Shoe,'’^ seeing that it has by no 
means yet been proved that there is necessarily any degree 
of inhumanity in the ordinary mode of shoeing. It is 
asserted in the pamphlet that the results are astonishing in 
improving the feet, and also the general condition of horses 
which have been subjected to the imperfect mode of shoeing 
commonly practised."’’’ For my part I must confess that I 
fail to observe anything whatever in this particular shoe, or 
in its application, that would justify the assertion that its 
adoption would prevent the existence of the various diseases 
enumerated in the pamphlet, seeing that, in the process of 
shoeing, whether by the Goodenough^’ or by the ordinary 
method, the ground surface of the foot has equally a rim 
nailed on its outer portion or wall. It is true that in the 
‘'^Goodenough’"’ shoe there are certain projections whicli for 
the first few days after the horse has been shod give the 
animal a somewhat surer foothold, but by the time the shoe 
is half worn out, it is found that the projections have disap- 
