must be injurious; and the mouth being made more or less sore, the inclination to feed, as a natural consequence, is diminished, thereby further checking the development. I cannot see in what manner the extraction of the milk teeth is to hasten the growth of the permanent incisors; but I can perceive that the operation may have the opposite effect; and I have known the practice to have been followed by the non-appearance of the very tooth, the protrusion of which through the gum, it was employed to quicken. The tooth, which previously seemed to be on the eve of piercing the gum, after the extraction of the milk incisor never came up,--nor will any person who has thought for an instant, wonder if the violence, necessarily used, does occasionally injure or rupture the delicate vessels and gelatinous tissues of the pulp. More often the breeder's impatient interference breaks the tooth off at the neck and leaves the fang in the jaw. This he has not the skill to extract, and as it is not afterwards absorbed but speedily assumes a dark colour, it remains a tell-tale and an eye-sore during the life of the animal. Had the colt been left alone, the fang in a few months would, by the natural process, have been absorbed: but the force which broke the tooth, though incapable of extracting it, probably ruptured the delicate tubes of the absorbent vessels. The broken member is left in the mouth, either to act as a foreign body, or to become united by anchylosis to the jaw, and continue for life a deformity. The folly of the practice will surely on reflection be evident to all; and the other means employed for the same end are in a like degree injurious. The breeder will consult his own interest best by studying the feelings of his animals. For the sake of profit, if not for the love of humanity, he had better cease to torture the poor beasts by which he hopes to gain. Suffering will neither engender spirit, growth, or fat, and the market pays price for each of these. The mouth of the horse is too important towards the value of the animal to be ignorantly mutilated. Let the mind reflect, before the hand is permitted even to use the lancet. To lance the gums of the human infant was once a favourite practice; nor has the custom at the present time fallen quite into disuse, but it is generally resorted to only during the cutting of the primary teeth, and not commonly adopted to facilitate the appearance of those teeth which the horse-dealer employs it to quicken. In the latter case, on man the gum lancet is not employed; and, if found useless on one animal, a strong inference is created as to the inutility of constantly experimentalizing with the instrument upon another. By incising the gums a wound is created, the part is thickened, and a cicatrix induced; the effects of which are to cause an impediment to the growing tooth; and this being seen and corroborated by practical observation, the best dentists and surgeons of the present day are not