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 140 thus grow, only proves still more clearly that Nature is extending her help to the animal, in so far as she is allowed to do so. Here comes in the superiority of the Charlier shoe over all others. As it is let into the crust, the frog has no forced growth to make, but remains (in this respect only) as if the horse were unshod. So does the sole; but the crust, even with this best of shoes, still gets mutilated with nails. ‘Of evils choose the least.’ The Charlier tip offers the least destruction to the foot, at the same time that it gives greater holding powers to the horse than anything yet invented in the shape of shoes. In his ‘Lectures on the Examination of Horses as to Soundness,’ published in 1878—Modern Horsey Literature—Mr. Fearnley tells his pupils: ‘The day will come, but perhaps it will not be in our lifetime, when the streets of our large towns will be paved rationally (with wood pavement), and then, happy day! we shall have horses wearing on their forefeet at once the most scientific as it is the most common-sense shoe—the Charlier. The stone pavior will cost the country many millions of pounds in horseflesh before the revolution comes about, but no doubt it will one day become a State question.’

Think of this, ye societies who have misunderstood your self-imposed tasks, and ye vestrymen who have squandered public funds, and ye horse-owners who have squandered your own, and ye journalists who keep upon the old track and offer questionable advice! Remember that it comes from