CONSIDER THE HORSE

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 18, 21 July 1934, Page 15

CONSIDER THE HORSE

OFF-SIDE RULE OF THE ROAD

(By "Simplex."); Number VII.

"A generation that knew not, . ." Hats off, gentlemen! The'horse.

No part of the task the writer has set himself presents such difficulty in. its approach as this that we are confronted with now. Nevertheless, it has to be faced. A Magistrate invalidated tho off-sido rule because au Order in Council made it apply to trame other than motor traffic and there was no power in tho Act of Parliament to enable this to. be done. The Order in Council- was promptly altered to exclude other traffic and an amendment to tho Act is promised this session to bring other traffic again within provisions of the regulation. A multitude of visions crowd upon tho writer as ho gazes upon this subject of tho horse. Ho .has memories of a very small, boy that used to sneak away of a,Saturday morning down hill into a-certain city till he arrived at an alleyway pungent with an odour of its own and littered with straw and other.things. It led up into a butcher's yard, and there, wero rang9d tiers of doors, the top half of which were always open, and nearly always a horse's head poldng over the.top of tho lower soction. The carts were ready out in tho street and soon . the horses were harnessed in. Then it was up and away. "Look at the kid driving!" Those were proud moments for the kid when he saw the fingers pointing, but the moments wore not always so proud when there was a sudden snatch at the reins, a hasty reprimand, apology, and explanation. For the hills were steep and the corners were sharp; great ruts often appeared across the surface of the metal roads and there was everything to learn of how it was not just ■a matter of where the horse was; made to go as where the wheels would "have to follow. Also there was the ever constant guard against a stumble.

Tho years passed by and the boy forgot all about horses. Various games

and interests.'.of all kinds usurped their pla.ce. till once, again acquaintance was made. This was in the country. First it was a hack, then the dray, factory cart to follow, and. frequently a .team. The car did riot' come till long after that: • : ■ ...-•••' THE MOTOR A DEAD THDTG. ; A^sailor loves his ship'and motorists love their car. They invest these things with personality and generally call them ."she," . The .writer has never yet heard' a lorry-driver say other than "it.". Now, :a car has no personality. One car differs/from'another, but you handle the>?y all .alike.: ;You may nurse one a bit. more-than another, but essentially they1 are the -same. Horses ate not :lUc'e'that. Horses have real personality; each- is'an' individual, and each has.a,mind .pf its own.' A motor engine may "be; a lively"1 thing, but it is-Hot alive; -it may-respond^ but it cannot act.1. Some,people pretend that it can; they, talk-as if it can; they praise-it; they- blame it when things; go wrong. Always ana all the time the ■ engine and'the car are in complete control of'the man who has charge §f them; if .they'are riot it is the' man himself- who ,is to. blame and not the yehiele.. Ho' should keep it in order. Oommereiar: concerns ' are particular about the mechanical condition of .their machines, and wfyeY© they operate on a large scale, they, generally have their! own garage and a staff of their own.' The same applies-;to tramears and to; trains.' 'Nevertheless, the engine-driver is responsible; for the statp of his.engine; he must satisfy himself that everything is" in; order. The motorman is'the same: He tests the car before he takes it bub of'tKo barn; it is part of: Ms duty to do so. In the same way a driver should test a motor-vehicle be-, fore taking; it out. on the road—brakes, tires, arid controls,,to, say nothing about the^.eleanaess of the glass in' the wind-, screen arid windows. ■■■■■ , ' ■'' ■'' ' To .■-.•deal;.- adequately with the horse would require quite a large book, but we will have to confine ourselves here to a few essentials, ilt .is possible to learn to handle a motor vehicle in a very' short time, 'but it takes years to gain what is generally referred to as "road sense." Has it ever struck you as curious that whenever you Bee or hear of a training ship for sailors it .is always a real sailing vessel and not a modern steamer, ior; • motpr-ship that is used. The shipping companies, of course, train cadets on • steamers, but sailors are'still best made the old way. It would not be too much to claim that the best motor driving could be obtained by first handling the home. "Koad sense" doos not come easily to people who have never, handled "-horses.-' "A SILENCE THAT SURPRISES. - Nothing has surprised: tho writer of these articles more than the total silence that greeted the announcement that tho offrside rule was! to be applied^ to all traffic; more especially^ ; the silence of the owners of teams and,the drivers^ of them." A motor vehicle is a dead thing Whatever strain, whatever demand is made upqn.it may affect its value or its efficiency,, but, nothing it is called upon to do can affect it personally. You would never dream of stroking the nose of,your ear and saying, "There, there, there!", You would be sent, or stand an excellent chance of being sent forthwith for a mental rest. Moreover, a motor vehicle is bought for certain duty,, and .is bought because it can discharge that duty: if it cannot, you get another.' You do not put a ten-ton strain- on a two-ton lorry, neither do you ask a ten-hoTse-power engine to haul a load of .bricks to the top of Wadestown.. Even if you do, it does not matter much; it will probably stick on the hill, Tiut, providing the brakes are good, it will remain there until you scud something to relieve it. Nothing suffers.

Tho greatest friend tho horse, over had was Macadam. Some people might idoubt that, and regard him in the light lof an enemy, but no one who has over ■ '/been familiar- with -an up-cbuntry road ',of fifteen oar twenty years ago will have

PROBLEMS THAT HAVE TO BE FACED

tlio slightest misconception, on that score. The greatest enemy the horse ever had is, of course, the motor. It is not intended to imply that the motor is an enemy because it has displaced the horse—far from'it. It is an enemy because of the manner in which it has displaced macadam. The motor road is quite at variance with ttie welfare of the horse. Attempts have been made to compromise, and even to re^ ' servo part of the roaa for the use of horses, but these have always ended in failure. The motor wins. KEEPING ON THE MOVE. Consider Wellington. What street is there now on wliigha horse can fairly be asked to haul a,heavy load?. True, there is a certain amount of wood-block-ing left, but how long will thlsremain, and,, in any case; how did wood-block--1 ing ever compare witk metal where the ; horse-is concerned.. Dn itioderh roads a horso has difficulty in starting ,up i its load. Once moving, tho load is : easily taken along, more easily possibly than over it was on macadam, but the ; load must be kept moving. It is pitiful to see a team of horses on a slippery surface down" constantly on their i knees trying to start up a load, and ■ shameful that the driver of any motor . vehicle should bring the animals, to a , stop. Quite apart from that, it is baa , traffic practice to stop a team; hprses- : travel so slowly, get away so slowly ! that anything .that hinders them only , makes the traffic situation worse. If a motorist can give way to horses he should give way; if he can dodge them, . well and good, but he ought to study i the horses before considering himself. ; "Road sense." What a world of meaning is bound up in that, term. This, however, does not touch the ; real problem. Horses could be.forbidden on streets built for motor traffic. The justice or injustice of that, or its practicability, is not a matter wo need discuss here. We have mentioned the hauling of loads uphill. There is no need to study the motor vehicle; it can j

stop, hold, and' x'estart its'load on any grade any Mil to wMeh it is put; if it cannot, it, has no business to be there. The horse is different.

A: horse "has a mind of its own. When a team is"put to a hill it.is a living force, instinct 'with knowledge of the hands that hold the reins, and as instinct -with knowledge of tho task that lies ahead.; A team travelling a known road will brace itself to rush a grade, or settle down into the collar for a-long pull just as man himself will do on encountering; a task he knows will try his powers. Sometimes a horse will shirk,. but the driver is ready and it is promptly sent along into its job. The driver's relation to his team is that of the conductor to ."an orchestra; he is the Master of- Ceremonies. ; • .-■■.■■■■.

■ Horses have what we know as "heart." . You_ never hear, a teamster boast of the colour of any of his favourites. ,He was a. "bay" he will say, talking of one that is gone,' but it meanß no more than that the colour was so, a mark of identification, in much the same fashion as he would add that it had a blaze down its face or had stocking legs. Owners used to pride themselves on their teams of' bays, or blacks or greys, Vbut always the boast of a driver is the horse's"heart" —its courage, its-ready and willing response *o every''demand made upon it. Horse's will stop:on"a hill. It.looks as if the driver had stopped^ but it is not really so. The driver "feels" his team, and knows just when they have had enough. To drive them on would break their '"'heart";,'they want a "breather." -To check them too soon would be ' equally bad. Thoy know their .w'ojrk;. they /buckle into it arid revel in it, provided they are in the hands of a man who understands them. There "is nothing of this' about the mo-tor-vehicle. "What the1 motor will do, top gear, or any is a different thing altogether. ■. ,/ up hul and down dale. When the motor-vehicle first burst upon "the world if fell for the most part into possession of people who know and understood horses. A large band of these people still exists, but it is a failing band. More and more tho roads are going over to. people who have never had. anything to ,do with horses, and understand'nothing of the problems involved in \ working them. If they did we would hear little of this subjecting them to rule-bright hand, left hand, or any other hand, Consider what it would entail. A team toiling up hill and coming to a cross-roads, or a side road, and finding a vehicle there, would have to stop. They would have 'to hold their, load, and they would have to restart it. Take even the simple ease of a baker's cart climbing 'a hill and about to turn to the right and find a "breather" on the comparative -leVel of a-side road when out might-come-a motor and; claim the right of way; It is preposterous. A team descending a hill would be no better off; probably infinitely worse. It is air very well for people sitting at their ease in a- motor-car talking of what a horse is to d.o and what it is not to do. A four-wheeled vehicle can be braked. It. may bo possible to pull up a horse team on the brakes as quickly, perhaps even more quickly than many people could stop a ear, but it is very hard on the horses, and hard on the driver. It does not hurt to.pull up a car, and nothing suffers whin it is started again. Horses may suffer badljr. ',; -.-'■;■ Boar in mind, too, that horses have to draw.'their load. There is no engine in the vehicle to push it along. Swinging on a bend, or in an intersect tion the traces have to bo kept taut. It takes room, and with a team on a hill quite a lot of room. A two-wheeled horse vehicle is different from one with four wheels. All sorts of problems are involved. The first is the method of loading. This has to be done witfi the utmost care, for it is not the vehicle that is being .loaded, but tho horao in jLho shafts,.

Tho load has to be balanced both as regards riding on tho horse's back and see-sawing from side to side.. It is not possible satisfactorily to brake a twowheeled horse-vehicle; it is done, but only in the case of very light vehicles is it safe suddenly to.snap the brakes on. The brakes of a dray are only a check; real braking is accomplished as a rule with a "sprag," or by using a chain on the wheels. An old-time method was a drag from the axle. On ordinary grades the "shafter" holds the load in the "breeching." How, then, can it seriously be proposed that this animal is to give way, no matter what the circumstances?

In flat country it is common to see horses harnessed to a dray by what are known as outriggers, that is the horses are all abreast, one in the shafts and another or others alongside. The nearer tho load the better the pull. The method is rarely used on hill country; the horses are harnessed up tandem fashion, the reason being that the pull, which is from tho front end of the shafts, keeps the shafts down. The up-hill haul tilts the vehicle back, and it is the bellyband that prevents the shafts from flying up into the air. No motorist meeting a dray or other vehicle ascending a Mil this way should do anything tliat will in the least inconvenience either the "horses or the driver.

This article, has run into quite uncontemplated length; yet the subject is scarcely touched. Enough has been written, perhaps, toindicate that there are serious problems involved. The rest can be left to those who operate horses and have a more intimate interest in tho matter than is likely again to be the ease with the writer. Gentlemen, —The Horse.

The picture was taken at Ettrick, in Central C'ago, a few years ago. The writer was passing, and, seeing the team outside one of the old goldflelds hotels, secured the photograph as a memento of a fast-disappearing phase in the life of the community.