TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9315, 16 January 1896, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

This question is asked by la the a correspondent of a MclAustralian bourne paper, and he him-

Horse self answers it with an Deteriorating? emphatic "Yes." The

question arose out of a paragraph referring to an article on the value of mounted croops which appeared in one of the English service papers, the editor of the paper stating that "it is to be greatly regretted that the Australian horseis gradually deteriorating in bone and sinew, and therefore in staying power—in all those qualities which go to make a horse valuable for military purposes." The correspondent above mentioned endorses every word of this remark. Where, he asks, are the horses now to be found that will perform the feats of former days 1 and he goes on to reoord some of the most remarkable of these feats which have come under his notice. He. quotes the case of the late Sir Richard Dry, who rode his horse Caliph from Hobart Town to Launceston,. a distance of some 120 miles, in twelve hours. Oao of his brothers once rode a horse 110 miles without stopping, aud the animal lived to the age of twenty-eight years, and was game to the last. "When I was a young man," he says, " I have ridden seventy and eighty miles without a rest, aud havo felt the horse under mc apparently as ireab and lively at the end of the journoy as when I started. Will the Australian horse of the present day perform these' feats ? That it baa deteriorated, cannot, I thiuk, be doubted." As to the cause, this writer does not think it is far to seek. He atcriboa it solely to the present system of

racing—"short distances, fealher wejoKu and handicapping producing a lot 0 { ' fl 3 - cripples that can cover a short distanoe vm|! something like a monkny on their back i an incredibly sliort time, nine-tenth these horses not being worth the ouu th eat oxcept for racing purposes." g 9 .r to mind that nearly Btxty years tt| . o !. prtucipal race of tho year in Lauuoest o ' was the Towu Plate, run iv three m? hoats, weight-for-agc. The year thatSwoea' man won this event, each heat was m* in uuder six minutes, and ho ail" whether Carbine or Trenton, carrying ft ! 81b, could perform such a font. The writ of this loiter, who describes himself a* ' old chum, is evidently an ardent the good old limes, and has all an. oil! chum's disbelief in modem amirs. loth to believe, however, that th ß tralian horses of today ute so inferior V* their ancestors as he would make thom'J! to be. Horses in these colonies are noi now, except iv the more remoto district, untouched by railways, required to perform such long journeys as tin y wertt in by ßOn , times, but ihub is not, saying that, if g Uc t performances were required to bo douo tk. necessary m.v material to do it is n^ existence. As to what Cubitia or Trenton, could do no one cau very well say w hjt they could not have douo, if trained for tot purpose.

The report that p, 0a j. The deu' K:tiger intended to Johannesburg mobilise his troops a tt j Food Supply, surround Johannesburg immediately raises th« question as to how loug tho pluco coulj staud the presence of a beleaguering foroe, which would presumably cut off supplies o| provisions. As far as cm bo sueu from an article by " Uitlander "in tho Mribourut Argus, there are few places moio ct«.

peudent upon the outside world iv tbj mattor of food than is Johannesburg. Th« whole Witwutersraml disttict, we are to!J produces nothing but a faw vegetables and a little fruit, even, much of tho milk ootnin» from miloi away. Tho principal neoaj.

sities are Hour uud mealies (Indian corn) the latter being almost ttio solo food of' the largo Kaffir population, which' consumes afcout 1000 sicks of 2001b per day. A little of this :j, raised in tho Transvaal but a very much larger portion of the quantity consumed comes from Natal, the Free State, and Bechuanaland, while Australia contributes some of tho flour. The African crops havj been much below the average during the past season, and it is thought probable that stooks in Johannesburg are low, especially as the Government some litllo time ago, to avoid a possible sharp rise in prices, contracted for several ship loads of flour and mealies which were to be supplied to the principal towns at a reasonable price. The mining companies are the laigest purchased of mealies on account of tho large iimnberi ot Kaffirs they employ, but It ii said that a mine ha 3 rarely more than a week's or a fortnight's stock in hand. " What the oousequenaes will be," says tho writer mentioned, "if sgjm 40,000 semi-savages are threatened with starvation is too terrible to imagine. Rapine, plunder, and mmder will be rampant, and it will require thß united efforls of all tho . Uitlandor population to keep the blacks in check." The Uitlanders also, he says, will be in a terrible situation. In 1889, whoq the famine on the Hand occurred, they had a foretaste of what they may soon be sufFat. iug. Then the dearth of provisions was due to the drought aud the consequent difficulty , of reaching Johannesburg by waggon. Tue Government then came to their assistance, but: oiraumstauces are now - altered, and the Government from a friend hat\ v

become an enemy. "To run the gauntlet will be well-nigh impossible. If the town has been invested it will be comparatively' easy to close all the roads to traffic;, and tb.B rail ways will naturally also be completely under Boer control." Tb«» -L'juation would have been considerably complicated had President Kmger adopted tho course of iv* vesting the city, and it is just as well, 1b the interests of peace and a speedy settlement of the trouble, that he did not put htt intention into practice. - ;

"UrrLVNDKU," the writer.' Germans mentioned above, who seemi - in tho to know South Africa in '

Transvaal, general, aud the Transvaal (ft

particular, as well as Christ.; . church people kuow High street, gives softs particulars about the German interest in the •'<£ Transvaal. The entire German population in Johannesburg, we leara, does not probably" exceed 600, and of this number very few " belong to the working classes. At first the <_ only Germans on tho Rand field were those" who had oome up with the rush' from ,\ Kiinberley, and are said to have been ' as English in their ideas as the EoglUh themselves. slb was not until 1889 that th» ' Gorman influence began to make itself feltj / *_ and then only in a small way. The Deutsche- r Bank, it seems, sent out a repreaenta- _; tive who acquired an interest in several -*'''' of the leading mines, and who subsequently > ingratiated himself with the Boer oomuitt'- < nity by becoming one of the originators of '/- the Transvaal National Bank. He bro^ighft into the country a large amount of oapit»K ; <; frora Berlin, and his sucoess ioducedothW ,-• German bankers to turn their attention to ri the Transvaal. The German element h**-V' lately become somewhat prominent among y Johannesburg financiers and but> English capital had assured the success. >\" of the Rand field before German speculators ;' ' did any business with the mines. . A few ot h the commercial houses in the city are of 1,-., German origin, but they reached Johannes* • ' burg from the Cape, where they jW<M **• - originally e.tablished. There mayalsobes';; few German! clerks. la fact, tha <»- only strong interest possessed -by Germany iv the Transvaal is that Urge :*? numbers of Germans hold a great deal of"j. mining stocks whioh they bought at, prices during the recent boom in mining, j-' shares on the London Exchange, l^& tV *& Emperor's action in interfering England and the Transvaal Government therefore entirely unwarranted by - ™ 8 : :f iC magnitude of.German interests the quarrel, and the excuse made for it, it was done' for the purpose of protecting German tubjerts, is proved to be of *»fl~';|" flimsiest nature. 1& . - .„£