SHIPPING HORSES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7047, 8 February 1910, Page 9

SHIPPING HORSES

tTNNRCESSABY RISK TO LIFE AND LIMB. ORDINARY CONVIOTENCES DEMANDED. The man who loads horses into a steamship at Wellington takes his life into his hands. Handling a string of unbroken horses, barely educated to lend, is a risky thing under fair conditions, but when the work hag to be accom-

plished without any preparation on the part of the wharf or ship authorities or the ordinary conveniences which such delicate work demands the risk becomes a hazard. The other day between fifty and sixty horses, the majority of them spirited, untamed animals, and ranging from .£SO to <£4oo in value, were loaded into a Melbourne boat -with as. little car© or precaution as if they were a mob of mules, and quite regardless of the safety of the m6n attending them. The loading into the horse-boxes was don© amid stacks of merchandise, with trollies and carts passing to and fro and the curi-osity-loving crowd encroaching on, the dangerously-limited space. At one time a trolley bumped into a horse, with the result that It reared and came down on the veterinary officer examining it. The escape of tho officer from injury or death was miraculous. If the horses must be loaded where general cargo ie being worked, surely tho goods could be taken from the wharf sheds at another’ door but that right on the horses' heels, and proper space roped off, to keep the public away and thereby allow the men handling the animals to work with some degree of safety. On tho occasion referred to the public was roped off towards the end of the operations, at tho soQaoibafcion of a man concerned in loading the horses, but the principal danger was then passed.