TO SHOOT WILD HORSES.

Grey River Argus, Volume LVII, Issue 9733, 26 July 1897, Page 4

TO SHOOT WILD HORSES.

(o) LONDON SPORTSMEN'S LATEST NOVEL SCHEME. No West End belle loves a new gown more fervently than the big game hunter of London loves a new quarry to stalk and secure. The very latest thing in big game — and latest things are becoming •wofully rare now that Africa has t been pretty well overrun — is the wild horse of Utah. A party of London sportsmen have in contemplation the crossing of the Atlantic early in the autumn of this year to try their hand at shooting one of the fleetest and wariest of big game, the wild horse. At the present moment it is estimated that there are more than 2,000,000 "wild horses in the Rocky Mountain ranges, and they have become a terrible nuisance, so that the killing of them is as great a benefit to Utah as the slaughter of rabbits is to Australia. Not many years ago the great ranches at the foot of the Rocky Mountains were used by the rearing of horses almost as much as for cattle. These were allowed to roam over vast tracts of rugged and uninhabited country, and even in the days when the beasts were worth con siderable sums in the Eastern market, and consequently were being cared for, they were much more akin to a wild than a tame horse. ROUGH-COATED, LEAN, coarse feeders, with muscles of steel, and tempers hotter than brimstone, they made the typical steed for wild plains, for scouts and Indian fighters, and Far "West cavalry-men, and were, in a lesser degree, useful in the cities of the East. But the Indian has passed into history, the buffalo has gone, and civilisation has rolled over the plains, bringing with it the sturdy, hard-work-ing, mild-tempered farm-horse, and gradually the demand for the savage of the West dwindled until it ceased to pay to rear them. Year by year less attention was paid to the branding of the foals, and finally the* herds were utterly neglected, even the ranches on which they fed being abandoned as hopelessly unprofitable. Left to take care of themselves, these mustangs soon lost the little veneer of "civilisation" that they had taken on, and have now relapsed into utter savagery. Formerly, so valuable was the horse, that the theft of one was adjudged a crime of deeper dye thanmurder. Now the horse thief that would round up a few hundred bands of these animals and run off with them would be elected a Senator. If the London party goes to Utah there is no doubt they will meet with a royal reception, and no obstacle will be put in their way. .