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HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING.

or stocks—exact counterparts of those employed by country farriers in Britain and the Continent half a century ago—where it is firmly bound and wedged in by ropes and bars, and a twitch—an instrument of punishment still tolerated in other lands—twisted to agony round the under-lip of the subdued beast, until its extremities have been iron-clad. The more docile and submissive animal is less harshly dealt with, for it is allowed to stand untied, with one of its feet flexed on a low three-legged stool, while the workman shaves off great slices of superfluous horn from the thick soles, with an instrument which

fig. 78

differs in no particular that we can see from the now obsolete "buttress" of England, or the present boutoir of France (fig. 78). Perhaps a fidgety draught animal does