The Hastings Standard Published Daily. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 27, 1897. THE FUTURE OF THE HORSE.

Hastings Standard, Issue 231, 27 January 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily.

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 27, 1897. THE FUTURE OF THE HORSE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The effect of motor-cars upon the future of the horse is being earnestly discussed in many of the English newspapers. Some writers maintain that, in a few years, the horse will no longer be bred for purposes of general utility, and that, if kept at all, it will be merely as a pet or a plaything. Others look upon this as a ridiculously extravagant conclusion, and advance many reasons for their belief that the horse will never be entirely supplanted by machinery. But there can be no doubt that the use of motor-cars and motor-carriages must seriously affect the prices of certain classes of hordes, and so, in the long run, bring about a radical change in the methods and aims of breeders. Even the horse-dealers in this country complain that the market for hacks has suffered considerably from the enormous increase in the use of the bicycle. Many a hack has been sold because its owner found a bicycle a swifter, more agreeable, more convenient and much more economical conveyance. When small electric motors are added to bicycles, many men who would find bicycle-riding in the ordinary way too fatiguing will adopt them to gt t rid of their saddlehorses. Liut it is, as the Saturday Review points out, the motor car, van, omnibus, cab and carriage which threaten to become the deadly enemy of the horse. At the same time, it is worth remembering that the prediction of fifty or sixty yoara ago, that steam would drive hor»e=> off the road, was never realised. It is possible that the new methods of progression and propulsion, may, as iu the case of the railway locomotive, develop fresh uses for the horse, and so save him from the fate anticipated bv some of his pessimistic friends. The draught

horse, at any rate, seems tolerably safe for some years longer. He may be driven out of the brewers' carts and city vans, where he has long cut an imposing figure ; but on farms and in railway yards, and in unroaded districts he will still hold his own. The cab horse will probably have to go, but as he, like Lord Beaconsfield's critic, is usually an animal that has failed in other walks of life, no one but the dealer will regret his departure. The hunter and the cavalry horse are not likely to be superseded by the motor for many years to come, but as they represent only the best results of the breeders' efforts, it is difficult to see what will become of the failures that are now turned to account in humbler spheres. Probably one good effect of the adoption of motor-cars will be to lessen the number of inferior horses that are produced by careless breeding.