sources, and in which property and society are in a sound and prosperous state. America and Ireland are no exceptions. The former is not peopled up to its resources, and in the latter, society is not in a sound state. In both countries population increases rapidly. In America, the desire of acquiring property, the accumulative propensity, is aided by the increase of family. A man marries, because, from the excess of property beyond the population, the services of his wife and family add to his property much more than their support can diminish it. In Ireland, from the total want of property among the lower class, the propensity to propagate is not under any restraint from the sense of property, the accumulative propensity. This latter propensity, as a check on the increase of population, is dormant in Ireland; and in America, as formerly in some of our own manufacturing districts, it is operating in the opposite way. It is there best gratified by aiding, instead of restraining, the propensity to early marriages, and to increasing families. But it may be assumed, that births and deaths nearly balance each other on an average of years, in all countries peopled up to their resources, and in which society is on a sound footing. The quantity of property, therefore, and the numbers of the population, will always bear the same ratio to each other in such countries.

If we set out with the supposition that, in a given country, or district of country, fully peopled, there are ten proprietors of one thousand acres each, ten of one hundred acres, ten of twenty acres each, and so on, we should find that, taking the births by which, under the law of equal division of property among children, these properties would have a tendency to be subdivided, and taking the deaths by which these properties would have a tendency to be re-united by inheritance, the one would balance the other, and the distribution of property in that country or district would be the same after a series of years as at first. Supposing one proprietor of one hundred acres, with his five children, his five-and-twenty grandchildren, and his one hundred and twenty-five great-grandchildren, each of whom would only inherit four-fifths of an acre of the original one hundred acres, to be not a family of immortals, we shall find, that if one half of mankind die before attaining the age of twelve,—that if the ave

rage of human life be under thirty years, and the average age at which men marry about the same, and that a large proportion of women never marry or never have children,-if we could combine these and other data, which perhaps are rather subjects of experience than of calculation, we should find that the probability is, that the hundred acres of this proprietor would, in the days of his great-grandchildren, be reunited by inheritance and held by one proprietor instead of by one hundred and twentyfive, and that it had never been much subdivided in the interval *.

• This principle, we apprehend, must be received under certain limitations. If, of thirty millions of people, three millions now possess property in land, it does not follow that in another generation or more, only three millions out of thirty millions will possess property in land. Granting the deaths to bear such a ratio to the births as to preserve the population stationary, still land, like gold and silver, may tend to pass by inheritance and subdivision, to a greater proportion of the population, than three millions out of thirty millions The prin ciple laid down by our excellent correspondent can only be strictly true when every person of these thirty millions possesses property in land; then, indeed, if the population be stationary, there can be no subdivision of this land into more than this number of shares. The principle, however, is with cer tain limitations just. Only a given number of the population of a country can, from the nature of land itself, or will, from the diversity of men's pursuits in society, become husbandmen or owners of land. Land, therefore, will tend to a subdivision, not amongst the entire population, but amongst a given proportion of it. Whether this maximum of division has yet taken place in France, can only be known after the lapse of generations. It is rather to be believed that the law has not yet been sufficiently long in operation to have produced this maximum of division. As to the fear of an inde finite division, this we conceive to be groundless. Not only is this tendency to subdivide checked in practice by considerations of expediency-as by brothers and sisters uniting to preserve an estate by arrangements with the elder inheritor, by sales, &c.-but it is subject in its operation to a controlling principle-namely, that in a community, a limited portion of the population only can, from the nature of things, be possessors or owners of land, and that, therefore, it is amongst a given number only that land will or can be divided. It would require an Agrarian law for every generation to make the result otherwise. The law of equal succession, we may observe, is extremely popular in France, even amongst the most enlightened classes; and any attempt on the part of the reigning family to interfere with it by restoring the law of primogeniture, has been met by the strongest manifestations of public dislike. The law is indeed well suited to prevent what is so much dreaded in that country-the restoration of the ancient régime; because it presents a barrier to the establishment of a feudal aristocracy. Whether it

For these and other reasons, I am of a different opinion from many on this subject; and do not think that a law of equal division of property among children would or does produce an excess of population, or too minute a division of land for the wellbeing of society. It is true it would prevent the excessive accumulation of land in the hands of a few families, it would keep up, if I may so speak, an equal temperature in society, by bringing all in turn to the surface, and by circulating the influence of property from the bottom to the top; but that would be far from being detrimental to the character, wealth, and happiness of a nation.

ON THE ACCIDENTAL INJURIES OF THE FOOT OF THE HORSE arising from shoeing, WITH THEIR EFFECTS AND TREATMENT. By Mr WILLIAM DICK, Veterinary Surgeon, Edinburgh. In a Letter to the Editor.

SIR,

HAVING on a former occasion offered some remarks on one of the most obscure diseases to which the foot of the horse is liable, I now trouble you with a few observations on the more common and obvious injuries arising from shoeing.

From the plan which is necessarily adopted of affixing the shoe to the foot by driving nails through a portion of the hoof, and from the small space which the structure of the hoof allows for the nails to pass through without injuring the quick (the sensible part of the foot),—from the many accidental circumstances connected with such an operation, and the frequency

presents an equally secure barrier against military despotism has been questioned by many, while to others it seems an institution better suited to a re. public than to a monarchy, in which it leaves nothing in the form of a landed aristocracy as a counterpoise between the prince and the people. Be this as it may, the operation of the law hitherto appears to have been eminently favourable to the happiness of a great mass of the population of France. As regards its effects on population, the ingenious reasoning of our correspondent seems to be borne out by the result, that, with greater indications of solid prosperity, the population of France is increasing more slowly than in most of the countries around it.-EDIT.

of its repetition,-it must be expected that in some cases, by a carelessness, or an accidental eccentricity of direction in driving the nails, some of them may enter into and wound the quick; which accident, when it does occur, is denominated pricking. Although I do not intend to enter into a defence of the carelessness of shoeing-smiths, I cannot help remarking, that when we reflect on the frequent repetition of the operation of shoeing, the number of nails driven into each shoe, and the small portion of horn through which the nails must pass (say three-eighths of an inch in thickness), we cannot but be astonished that this accident so seldom occurs. In many cases, no doubt, where the injury is slight, no bad effects follow, and the injury may be unknown; but it more commonly happens, that where a puncture has been inflicted inflammation is produced, which, running through a variety of stages, destroys a greater or less portion of the foot, according to its severity, or the treatment adopted, and renders the animal for a considerable time unfit for use.

A simple puncture with a nail, if at first attended to, is a matter, comparatively speaking, of little consequence; but the effects which rapidly follow both this and many other, at first trifling injuries, are frequently of the most series consequences.

In every instance where the quick is irritated by a foreign body, and that irritation kept up, or where it is sufficient at first to excite suppurative inflammation (a formation of matter or an abscess), unless it is detected in an early stage of its progress, and a proper opening made to allow the escape of the matter immediately after it has been formed, it will almost invariably be found that the suppuration will continue to increase, and, as it cannot open a way for itself through the hoof, it will pass up to the coronet, detaching the hoof in proportion to the degree of the inflammation which has been set up. In some instances, this may be comparatively slight and to small extent, but more commonly it is violent, and produces the most destructive effects in the part which it has attacked, causing extensive sloughings of the coronet, and, in some extreme cases, extending until it has produced even a detachment of the whole hoof.

Suppuration within the hoof may be produced, not only by wounds with nails in shoeing, but by wounds from sharp stones

or other bodies on rough roads. It may also arise from bruises, corns, sandcracks, treads, overreaches, and what is sometimes called a seedy toe. In all these cases effects are produced similar to what I have mentioned in punctures with nails; matter is formed within the hoof, which must be allowed at once freely to escape, otherwise the suppurative inflammation extends throughout the whole foot, producing complete destruction, permanent lameness, or a quittor. In every instance (except in unnerved horses) where suppuration takes place in the foot, great and acute pain is soon evinced, and this continues until the matter escapes at the coronet, or the wound has been opened through the horn. But the difficulty, in most cases, consists in discovering the seat and nature of the complaint.

The various causes from which suppuration may arise, are, to those unaccustomed with the examination of the foot, so little known, that the lameness is commonly referred to some other part; a violent strain, it is perhaps thought, must be the cause of it, because it has come on suddenly, and because the leg has become swollen; but these are common occurrences in the kind of injuries of which we are treating, and cannot be mistaken without incurring the danger of irreparable mischief. The lameness may be sudden, because the wound may arise from picking up a nail, or from treading upon the corner of a stone and wounding the sole: it may arise from a corn, or from accidentally treading with increased force upon a part already inflamed by having been previously wounded by a nail, perhaps from an accidental twist or displacement given to the shoe, or it may arise from the sudden occurrence of sandcrack, a tread, or an overreach. In such cases, unless there appears an obvious wound, the chances are that the lameness is referred to some obscure situation, such as the shoulder, the hip-joint, or the back sinews, and these parts are incessantly besmeared with ointments, until the mistake is discovered by the appearance of a collection of matter between the hair and hoof. The seat of the disease is then discovered when too late, and instead of being able to check its progress and restore the animal to soundness in a few hours, as many weeks or months will, in all probability, be required.

VOL. II. NO. IX.

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