actually made to the writer by an Irish clergyman. Such an argument can only be fished up from the depths of bigotry. Those who urge it would also deny that donkeys could go unshod, but for the fact that they see them doing so, and successfully. Now, in England, donkeys are shod; and why? Only as an affair of routine. One of the chief arguments—in fact, the sheet-anchor—of those who will not allow the equine species to go barefooted is ‘our moist climate and hard roads.’ Ireland is rather ahead of us in having a moister climate, and the roads, as described, are in no way better than ours; so the point of departure of nearly all sticklers for the necessity of shoes will bear no more investigation than the puerile and futile chain of reasoning with which they follow it up.
To such as are open to conviction, it will be evident, therefore, that our donkeys in England would gain by leaving off shoes, and that their owners would at the same time be richer. Why should this not hold good also in regard to the horse? The statement that he is less fitted for it by nature will stand neither argument nor practical experiment, should the latter be made with intelligence and a desire to succeed.
Can any one really believe that the animal which is endowed with the greater speed and power should have worse feet than his inferior in both respects? Nonsense is no name for such a creed; it is something far worse. Mayhew says: ‘Nature has in vain laboured to instruct the waywardness of conceit;
