THE VANISHING HORSE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3146, 4 December 1922, Page 7

THE VANISHING HORSE.

(By J. Caxon Mills.) , Homebody predicted a little time ago that the White Horse of Wiltshire, which vs so familiar an object to tourists faring westwards, will some day he looked at with much interest as the picture of an extinct species’. I suppose we shall then have complete histories of the horse, 'from its far-away ancestor, the Eohippus of geological antiquity, down to these Tate days when it was killed by the internal combustion engine.

That is not likely to happen quite as soon as the prophet foretold 1 . It is true, all the same, that the hors© i« being gradually superseded by swifter and more enduring means of traction and portage. If is not passible to get accurate figures to show the rate of decline. But such as I have tell the story unmistakably, though the decrease is not quite so rapid as I had thought. Here, again, as in so many other cases. the Great War confuses statistics. But let us look at the kuestion from the agricultural point of view. The horse has always been an indispensable factor in the life of the farm, though the ox is used in some countries for the same purpose. A little time ago no one dreamed that the horse could be superseded for ploughing and other heavy farm-work. Wo speak of “two-horse land” and “three-horse land” to indicate the lightness or heaviness of the soil, and wo can scarcely imagine the hay cart or the harvest-wain without the big shire horse.

T find that in 1895 there were 1.337,905 horses on the farms of England and Wales. In 1912 there were 1,248,003 and in, 1921 1,147,685, a decrease of nearly 200,000 on the first year. As to horses in general there are no available figures. The subject is perplexed by the war. I might mention that after tho Armistice 95.000 horses were sold by the Army authorities to private persons in this country. There can be no doubt that the motor plough and the steam tackle plough and the immense developments of motor cars and vans and bicycles are gradually, but surely, reducing the. number of our horses. In some ways I think this is a pity; there cam never he that close, almost human, friendship between a man and a machine which may exist between a man. and a trusted and favorite steed.

Also it is a pity that horse-riding should become loss populan There w no exorcise to compare with that, for. as has been said, the rider gets the exercise and the horse the fatigue. Moreover, for purposes of pageantry, the most magnificent ’and radiant mo-tor-car cannot compare with tin' carriage drawn hy thoroughbred horses, and I do not think Rotten How is anything like as interesting and stately a spectacle as it used to be. Meantime, as a partner in sport and war. and for many other purposes, the horse is likely to survive for many centuries. And one word I must add. The substitution of ironmongery for horse-flesh has abolished a great deal of suffering and cruelty. We need not pity our motoring and cruelty. We need not pity our motor-car for a toilsome climb up a “hill perpendicular. We can change the gear, which we could never do for the poor laboring animal.

Remembering how tlie horses used to fall under their burdens, how they staggered to start again the old horetrain whenever it stopped to put down or, take up, we need not be very sorry nowadays to look sometimes from the top of a tram and not see a single horse for a hundred yards in any direction. Let us hope, anyhow, that chivalry will not depart from the world with the splendid animal which gave it its name.