TROOP HORSES' FATE.

END OF FAITHFTJI, SERVICE. WHAT BECAME OF N.Z. MOUNTS. MANY SOLD TO BRITISH. ARMY. Several of the "Star's" correspondents have been expressing indignation that ■horses used by the mounted men in Egypt and Palestine s-hould be sold to the natives —notoriously cruel to animals. The correspondents suggested that money should be raised in New Zealand to prevent the horses falling into the hands of undesirable owners. This is a very laudable suggestion, and is no more than one expects from a country where the horse is treated with some of the respect due to such a noble animal. But from what we ran gather from responsible officers who have come back from Egypt, there is no need for such a fund. In any case, it is now too late, and the horses have all been disposed of. As far as the "Star" can learn, the horses of the New Zealand Mounted Brigade were not sold to the native inhabitants of Egypt and Palestine. Which is a matter for thanks, as both Egyptians and the mixed races who inhabit the Holy have hot the' faintest glimmerings of kindness to animals in their make-irp. WORK FOR THE S.P.C.A. In the cities like Cairo and Alexandria opinion is too strong to allow a great deal of the flagrant cruelty that is seen in many of the provinces, but even there many of the animals in the "gharries," as the local landaus are called, make one ashamed to be seen driving behind sircti cattle. In the country the patient donkeys and cattle (yoked to the waterwheels and ploughs) are treated in a manner that frequently led to summary justice being carried out by indignant men in khaki on the callous fellaheen, who are apparently brutal on principle to iinything that cannot hit back. In Palestine it wae even worse. There you would see an alleged human being working a quadruped about five times as attenuated as the poorest Maori "weed" —■ a mere collection of patches of skin and bone and sores, which could hardly support its own feather-weight, without the cruel loads piled on its back. When the New Zealand Brigade first reached the neighbourhood of JatTa there was a particularly miserable specimen of this sort of beast of burden. Some of our men coolly took it out of the crazy cart it was drawing, tossed the few bits ot string and leather called harness to the protesting owner, and put the poor animal out of its misery.