Page:Horses and roads.djvu/193

 Rh system of shoeing is simply ruining them. As we have seen, there is, at least, one intelligent firm who have stuck to the Charlier system for more than seven years, and have made their success with it public through the Press. To all appearance they might almost as well have remained silent on the subject. Who is there that can boast of having put their enterprise and experience to profit? Echo answers. Who? May we be allowed to ask, whence arises such indifference on a question of millions annually? If submitted to Lord Dundreary, he would probably say: ‘It is one of those things no fellow can understand;’ and this is the only solution the writer can propose as a corollary to that of ‘Impecuniosus,’ which is, ‘because everyone does it, I suppose;’ and to that of ‘Santa Fe,’ who says:  ‘Fortunately our ancestors did not shoe their dogs and cats, or, in all probability, most of us would do so in the present day.’ The enterprising London firm in question liberally offered their horses for inspection, and no one went to see them! One gentleman said:  ‘I have got along for the last thirty-five years, and I shall not change now.’ He had something of either the Mede or Persian about him, and there are too many like him. We may say, en passant, that his horses were about as badly shod as any that can be found nowadays, and were, every one of them, unsound from this very cause; but he did not want to know any better.

A propos of horses, we will look at the lightly-built and lightly-limbed mules, with hoofs scarcely