advantage, and which should make their chase all the more exciting. Perhaps people are afraid that then they would never be run down at all, or even viewed. Foxes run stoutly, and some of them manage to outrun both hounds and huntsmen without the aid of so much as a sock or slipper, and so do the deer on Exmoor that have rougher ground to deal with than most people imagine; yet we do not hear much about their going into hospital. The deer that got so knocked up on the occasion cited could not have been in condition, or ‘fit’ for a hard run, and must have been prostrated by simple overexertion. Should he be brought forward after many years as evidence that horses require shoeing? Fair argument and common sense do not appear to be entirely necessary to everyone who is determined not to be convinced.
However, as regards those sharp flints, Mr. Douglas has informed us that the frog does not fear them. Colonel Burdett says that the natural sole is almost impenetrable, and so hard and strong that it protects the sensible sole from all harm; and Osmer tells us that all feet exposed to hard objects become more obdurate thereby if the sole be never pared. Now, has ‘Herts’ considered that our shoe does not cover either the frog or more than the edge of the sole, and, mutilated as they are by the knife, that the sharp stones must continually be reaching them, and that still horses do not get cut by flints in these parts? Where they get cut and crippled is on the brittle crust, and sometimes on the outer rim
