HOME FOR HOUSES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 133, 3 December 1930, Page 15

HOME FOR HOUSES

A SURVIVOR. OF MONS

The Duchess of Portland has a wonderful stable at W-elbeck Abbey, states a writer in an English paper. Thero are horses of many kinds in it, but they a-re not proud, fiery chargers or sleek racehorses or proud stallions. Tho duchess's horses are old and worn. There are tired brown horses, that have tho marks of van-harness on their backs; little black ponies that blink in wonderment at the suii that' is strange to them after years of the darkness of a pit; little grey donkeys that have carried laughing children by tho seaside; big cart-horses that have pulled heavy loada over rough farm tracks. . j No woman in Britain has done moro for the comfort of suffering horses than the duchess. She will not talk about her work; she does it because of her lovo of animals, and she finds her re ward when she walks across the lawn at Wclbcck Abbey in tho morning and sees her collection of horses grazing peacefully in a beautiful paddock. She loves to watch these tired horses growing stronger and happier under the caro and attention that she gives them. "The duchess obtains the horses for her settlement in "Vfelbeck in many ways," says tho writer. "Everywhere she goes she is on the look-out for likely horses. Slie can tell at onco when an animal is unhappy. Many times she has stopped a driver in the street and told him that he was hurting his horse. If tho driver is doing it through ignorance she gives him advice, and asks for his address, so that.she can keep in touch with him and see that the horse's condition is improved. If, however, the.trouble is.duo to wilful cruelty, the duchess is stern. ... If sho finds that tho man will not listen to reason, she reports him and makes an offer for the horse." One of the latest animals to come under her protection is a horse that helped to save the guns at Mons. She is sending it to Cricklcwood Home, for there is no more room at Welbcck just now.