Page:Horses and roads.djvu/224

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HORSES AND ROADS.

they have had enough of London stone pavements, are sold in foal by transport companies. See recent advertisements in the daily press, and then give us the lie.

At the Northern Horse Repository go and see every Friday a sale of foreign horses that always are unshod, at least on the hind feet. The sellers are evidently wide enough awake to have perceived that there is some advantage in showing them off in this state, or else they would clap shoes on to them, to give them a fictitious value. Horsed-ealers suppose themselves to be up to every dodge, and this is one, amongst others, that they are keeping as ‘dark’ as they can. The innocent (or ignorant) acquirers of these animals (as we have found out by frequent attendance at these sales) never dream of putting them to work until the farrier has been allowed to exercise those brutalities, in which he is such an adept, upon their feet.

These writings could be prolonged by pushing arguments and quotations; but we are inclined to think that enough has been said on the present occasion, which we regard strictly as a first stage upon the road. We are not sanguine enough to believe for a moment that we can bring about a sudden revulsion, although we may, perhaps, have helped on a movement which will not be arrested. We have vouchers that some readers have been able to keep their attention sufficiently alive to go through a course of nearly seven months’ weekly reading on the subject in the ‘Farm Journal,’ and this is en-