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rate bodies; clear-headed individuals have to be depended upon for putting the thing to the test. Board meetings are amongst the slowest and most obtuse of all institutions; they always demand precedents, and when they receive them, they shake their heads, and do as they meant to do. However, some of them have rushed into mules, and it would look as if they now had to rush about for more stable accommodation, more helpers, and more farriers. The farriers will be striking against them soon for more wages and less work—everything is worth what it will fetch in the market; and they are creating a demand for farriers by multiplying the number of their animals—but is this making things good for trade? The farriers probably think it is, but then they are interested parties; how about the shareholders? This is not only a question of humanity, which we will put first (for the sake of form for such people), but also of largely vested interests. We will ask again, what is the reason for such extensive shoeing? We have seen that the mules have no load to keep back; does it help them to pull, or prevent them from slipping when so doing? Let anyone take the trouble to go and look at them. If he should happen to be a shareholder, all the better, and he will be persuaded that their hardest task is to gain a foothold for a start. They run only on flat ground, or ground with scarcely appreciable ascents; but see how they strain every muscle, and how they make the sparks fly out of the stones. Of course, the larger the surface of