6 THE ETIQUETTE OF VETERINARY AUTHORSHIP. 
by Mr. Williams, were published by me in the two works 
referred to, and insisted upon in the strongest manner. 
Surely this is one proof of the justness of my complaint. 
With regard to the shoe introduced by Mr. Thacker and 
that invented by Mr. Williams, the average of similarities 
runs again very close : both shoes are plane on the foot- 
surface, concave on the ground surface, and are narrow at 
the heels ; the differential details are unimportant and in¬ 
significant. This must be, if we are to accept Mr. Williams' 
statement, one more example of the independent originality 
pertaining to the invention of horse-shoes. I can perceive 
no analogy in Mr. Williams’ shoe to the Charlier shoe; in 
form, and in the method of application, there is not the re¬ 
motest resemblance. 
Mr. Williams, alluding to his having read, as an adjudi¬ 
cator, forty-two essays on shoeing, asks “ Does Mr. Fleming 
suppose that he alone out of the forty-two essayists advocated 
the concave shoe, sole-pressure, non-paring of the foot, or 
all and every idea upon an enlightened system of horse¬ 
shoeing ? ” 
I suppose nothing at all. I only know that my work on 
“Horse-Shoes and Horse-Shoeing” was published several 
months before the advertisement appeared offering prizes for 
essays on the subject; and from the extensive and favorable 
manner in which the book was reviewed, it was brought 
largely before the public. This placed me at an obvious dis¬ 
advantage in the essay competition, as my opinions on the 
subject were then well known; and I should not have ven¬ 
tured to compete had those who knew I had not said all that 
I could say on the subject persuaded me to do so. It is just 
possible that but for this circumstance we should not have 
heard quite so much about “ concave shoes, sole-pressure, 
non-paring of the foot, or all and every idea upon an en¬ 
lightened system of horse-shoeing.” 
From the perusal of so large a number of essays—of which 
one appears to have been the most practical and original 
Mr. Williams ever read—one would have expected some 
indication of originality and interest in his remarks on the 
subject; but I and others have looked in vain for anything 
that had not appeared in the book and the essay to which I 
have referred. Mr. Williams probably found that it is not 
such an easy matter to be original as second-hand, even in 
such a subject as horse-shoeing. 
I have to thank Mr. Williams for his extreme courtesy in 
admitting that I have given a very full and accurate account 
of what has been written on the subject up to the date of my 
