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 Rh their riders unshod; and in this kingdom I have known several horses ridden for a considerable time unshod on the turnpike roads about London without any injury done to their feet. And I believe there are many horses that might travel their whole lifetime unshod, on any road, if they were rasped round and short at the toe; because all feet exposed to hard objects become thereby more obdurate if the sole be never pared.’ In shoeing à la Charlier the sole never is pared, and it is always in direct contact with the ground, without any shield whatever to protect it from even sharp stones.

The hackneyed objection to ‘our moist, variable climate, and hard roads,’ so continually opposed to the practice of leaving horses to go unshod (even by some of the advocates for shoeing à la Charlier), is a mere empirical assertion, not founded upon experience, but an effect of imagination and prejudice which has become willingly accepted, without a challenge, whilst it is really the reverse of fact.

Mayhew says: ‘Truly the stable mind must quit the scene of its present labours before it will submit to be enlightened. It is now so protected by a wall of selfishness, ignorance, and prejudice that it is open to no assault;’ and elsewhere: ‘Nature sends the horse into the world with ready-made and stout-made shoes.’ Mr. Douglas says of horse-shoers:  ‘They think they can stand, as it were, with their backs against the door of the world, in order to prevent novelties which might interfere with their opinions from coming in. But the world’s walls are