he seems to have overlooked the economical facts that, although in this way his horse-shoeing cost him more by the year than formerly, he had less to pay to the veterinary surgeon, that he got more work out of his horses, and that they lived longer, or were likely to live longer (as he had only then had two years’ experience). If this be taken into account, his forge was, however indirectly, a great commercial success. If he had not found it to answer, so shrewd a man would not have carried it on, nor would he have ventured to speak on the subject in so independent and authoritative a manner on such a special occasion.
We are sadly in want of a man or two more in England like Messrs. Russell, Bowditch, and the Messrs. Smither, and as outspoken. They need not risk the setting up of their own forge, each man individually. They have only to co-operate, and either arrange that one of them in every district should start one, making an agreement with a certain number of neighbours that they should have all their shoeing done there, or else, by union, bring pressure on the shoeing smiths. A young man, just starting, or having just started, in business would be, perhaps, the best to choose, as he could not point to the universal satisfaction he had hitherto given (although horse owners are quite easily satisfied as long as the shoes will only stick on until they are worn out); and, after a couple of shoeings on the same horses, he might discover for himself that a new era was open to him by lending himself to the
