The Burnside Weekly Stock Sales: A Plea for the Dumb Animals.

Otago Witness, Issue 2676, 28 June 1905, Page 9

The Burnside Weekly Stock Sales: A Plea for the Dumb Animals.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sic, — I would like, through the medium ol your valuable paper, to call attention to tho* scandalous state 1 of affairs that exists in connection with the railing and unloadI in% of live stock at the Burn side weekly i market. On-e only has to visit the cattle yards on a Tuesday night to be convinced that there is something very far wrong in the way stock are conveyed there. The first train with stock arrives at about 4.40 p.m. ; and then each- succeeding train up tili 2.30 the folio wing^morning brings a few trucks each. I woula like to ask the Mmi 1;tov of Railways if a^special stock train could not be run through so as to arrive at Burrisidc at>s p.m. x If a passenger train can be run -through from Invercargill in five hours, why does it take 18 hours for stock to come the sam-e distance? It is a common thing ■ to find several sheep dead, and often cattle down in the trucks. Now, Sir, if the farmers looked to their own interests they would insist upon having a special train run for live «tock. If the .inspector for cruelty to animals were to visit Burnside cattleyards on a Tuesday night he would be astounded at the amount of cruelty the *toek is subjected to in being transferred on dark nights from the trucks to the yards. Hoping that an abler pen than mine will tak& this important matter up. — I am, etc.,

Stockowkek.

French writers are again warning the public against what is termed " tho green peril " in other words, absinthe, the consumption of which is fearfully on the increase in France. In Belgium an interdict has been placed on the terrible drink, and its manufacture and sale are now forbicden in that country. According to one of the anti-absinthe writers, M. Maun^e IVmeyr, 133,000 hectolitr-ee. or 2,926.000 gallons- in round numbers, of the stuff are annfflily absorbed by French people, mcai and women, for the women have also learned to like the fee verte, now the green peril. Fifty years ago only 735 hectoiitres of absinthe were consumed in France. The increase of lunacy is attributed to the deleterious drink. Sixty years back there were only 10,000 registered lunatics, and now there are BC.OOO. The incease in crime is also traced to the love of absinthe among the masses.