SOME FACTS ABOUT LONDON WORKING-HORSES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2105, 28 June 1894, Page 8

SOME FACTS ABOUT LONDON WORKING-HORSES.

A recent writer has calculated that there are about 80,000 horses working for their living in the streets of London. Thid total does not include carriage horses, riding horses, and the like. These animals, of course, work for their keep — there are few who do not ; but just as the term working man is commonly applied only to those who do hard, physical labour, so in this article, when working horses are spoken of, the phrase must be taken to include only the humbler members of the equine herd — those who draw carte, omnibuses, or cabs.

Taking then the sum total of London working horses as 80,000 in round numbers, we find that, of these 20,000 are omnibus horses, 10,000 drawl trams, and 15,000 spend their lives between the shafts of the " growler " or "hansom;" 27,000' are engaged in the metropolitan carrying trade, ' 6000 of these being in the service of the rail- 1 way companies, 4000 of Pickford's, 2000 ofCarter Patereon's ; 1500 are vestry horses picking up a living (literally) in the streets with dust carts, &c. ; 3000 drag beer barrels about for the great brewing firms ; and 1500 are employed by coal merchants in distributing fuel. The remaining 2000 is a rough guess at the number of animals not exactly calculable, which are engaged in other smaller businesses.

That the lift: of a London working horse is not an easy one may bo judged from the fact that the bt-st animals i»ru worn out in six, or at most seven, jear*. Lite on the London stones between the shatu> ot a heavy dray or omnibua, with the constant jarring of the teet and hr.rain of stoppages and Atarliug pulls, teais the endurance of the fetiougebt auiinal, ana the most patient beat>t rnuct of itu wish himself back again in the quiet Yorkshire and Lincolnshire farms, from wiji.ua to maiiy ot his ciahs como

Bought at liv&yeaia old aud bet to work at once in town, a shire or Clydesdale is an old horse by 10, no longer fit for arduous dray work. Then he returns to the farm again for a few years' more quiet life in the fields, or, if he be too far gone for that, he still realises something in the knacker's yard.

People who have only an out-of-door acquaintance with horses would not, perhaps, imagine that these animals take kindly to etaircliuibiug, but a tew visits to London working horses at home soon dispel any doubts on this head. Most of the large stables in the metropolis are built in two, and some in three, storeys, and about 8 o'clock on any morning in the week the runs which slope from floor to floor are alive with a descending crowd of "gee-gees," who pick their way cautiously down to the music ot jingling baruew.

To teed several thousand horses in such a way as to fit them for their ardu ua work is no slight business, and entails much outlay and very careful management. A visit to a large horee-keeping company's provender &tores, or "horses' kitchen," as it might be called, watt a Hovel experience for the writer, who imagined that as long as a horse bad good oats and beans to crunch, and good hay to pluck trom the rack, he was noo particular about " made dishes."

Food in its pure state, however, may do very well for the aristocrats of the horses world, the private carriage horses, who often want occupation and amusement in their long hours of idleness in the stall. But town working horses, whose duties are engrossing and whose meal times are short, require their food to be presented to them in a more compact and easily digestible form. So the hay and clover must be ohaffed, and the oats and beans crushed or

bruised, and the whole fodder carefully mixed and measured, so that each animal may have its fair share in the right proportions. Moreover, the provender must be thoroughly cleaned of dust and other impurities, or dust balls may form in the animal's intestines, and clog them up, with possibly fatal results.

At a railway company s provender stores, which the writer recently visited, all these operations are carried on by machinery. The trusses of hay and sacks of oats and beans are taken in from van or truck and immediately placed on elevators (or "Jacob's ladders"), which deposit them in loft or bin at the top of the building. When taken out again, the hay and clover are thoroughly shaken, mingled together, placed in the chaffcutter, and after being cut up, carried up by elevators again to another bin at the top of the building, whence it falls by gravity into the mixer.

Tho oats, peas, and beans have a strong current of air passed over them to rid them of dust, and are then passed through a double s eve to separate from them any foreign seeds. Next, the corn is brought into contact with a magnetic plate, which at once draws away vails, pins, needles, &c, of which not a few get mixed with the food. Then, after being crushed between ateelrollers, the oatsand beans are carried by elevators and mechanical travellers to join the chaff in the mixer.

This ingenious contrivance deposits in each sack exactly the right quantity of each kind of provender, and at the same time* mingles all the ingredients thoroughly together. Each* sack, when filled from the spout of the mixer, is tied up and placed on one of two small elevators, which place it on van or truck, as may be requried, to be delivered in town or country. v

Out of these stores about 7000 Backs of prepared provender s»re sent weekly, each of which supplies a horse's fodder for rather less than two days.

Thus is a working horse fed ; but the fatal day comes when — noble animal though he is — he has himself to supply meat to humbler creatures. The horse on an average yields 2cwt 3qr of meat, and as each pound is cut up into half a dozen ha'porths, this means 1848 meals for cats and dogs. One big firm of horse slaughterers kill 26,000 horses annually, and the amount of deal used in skewering up a yeir's yield of cat's meat has been computed at 182% tons.