Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/631

 nails so closely jammed to each other, and if any elasticity or lateral expansion exists at the lower margin of the forefoot (as the patentee asserts), it must be apparent that it would no longer be permitted when this shoe is nailed on. The projecting calks at the toes must greatly tend to induce stumbling, particularly with saddle-horses, while they would cause dreadful wounds in kicking. So far the shoe is a defective one; and when the calks are worn off, which happens in a brief period if horses are employed on paved roads, it is but little different from the ordinary shoe. Being bevelled or concave on the foot as well as the ground surface, it as readily allows stones and mud to insinuate themselves between itself and the sole, while from the method of applying it, it is just as likely to produce corns, sandcracks, and the other maladies mentioned, as to prevent or cure them.

In December, 1868, the mode of attaching it to the foot looked most unscientific, if not cruel and barbarous. A visit to the place where some omnibus-horses were being experimented upon, a few days after the newspaper article we have quoted from was published, proved a great disappointment. One of the merits of this system was said to rest upon the wonderful discovery that the horse's frog was intended naturally to come into contact with the ground; and as the full benefit of this novel announcement was, it appeared, to be immediately bestowed on the unfortunate horses, the problem as how this could be done with a shoe very much thicker than that in ordinary wear, and provided with additional projections from its ground face, was being readily solved. The knife and rasp were as actively employed as ever; thin crusts and thin soles were