Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/579

 fitting a hot shoe to it, in order to adapt the armature more accurately to the surface on which it was afterwards to be nailed; and some of these people would nevertheless injure the hoof in a very serious manner in other respects, to suit their own particular crotchets, which were probably as meaningless as they were injurious. For a great number of years, this declamation had been stoutly maintained by sundry individuals, some of whom perhaps had good reason to do so, seeing the injurious manner in which the feet were pared, and the likelihood that a careless workman would reach the sensitive parts through the thin pellicle of horn remaining with his hot shoe; but these accidents must have been very rare, and were no doubt least to be dreaded of any incidental to shoeing as it was usually practised. Mr Miles notices this fear of hot fitting: 'The danger apprehended from the shoe being applied to the foot so hot as to burn the crust and cause it to smoke, is utterly groundless. I would not have it made to burn itself into its place upon the foot without the assistance of rasp or drawing-knife, but I would have it tried to the foot sufficiently hot to scorch every part that bears unevenly upon it, because the advantage of detecting such projecting portions is very great, and this mode of accomplishing it is positively harmless; indeed it is the only one by which the even bearing necessary to a perfect fitting of the shoe can be insured.'

Some amusing stories are told of nervous old gentlemen, who were not only not satisfied with having their horses shod in their stables, but actually had the shoes immersed for a certain period in the coldest water procurable, in order to dispel the latent heat. So it had become