FROM A VERY OLD HORSE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume 6, Issue 597, 11 January 1879, Page 2

FROM A VERY OLD HORSE.

To the Editor of the Evening Herald. Sir,— ln these days of horses and horse talk, it is only fair that the other side of the question should be heard. I'm an old horse — confess to being a very old horse — and may, therefore, claim some knowledge of what a horse has to undergo during the process of training, and as some people call it, breaking-in. At four years old I was as handsome a bit of stuff as any man or woman could put eyes on, and I was immediately taken m hand by the knowing ones, and required to show my paces. Well, with the ingenuousness of youth I did so, and won all the races and all the stakes I was put to. I feared neither weight nor distance ; my confidence m my masters was so great that I often gave them, or him, as it might happen, the office as to what I could or could not do. The stupidity of man is tremendous ; his cruelty is prodigious, and his general want of knowledge m regard to vs — the most noble of God's creatures — is perfectly astounding. For instance, m my young days, it was required of me to carry a very heavy mass of human flesh over some rather ticklish leaps. Well, I was game enough ; I knew what. I had to do, and would you believe it, when the tug of war came to be decided, and 1 was "called upon" to do my share of the work, I did so, and the result was, that I left my rider behind, and being without any further interest m the matter at issue, I went home. I was thenceforth set down as a badtempered animal, and not to. be trusted, and although even my worst enemies could not complain of my general appearance and capacity, and although I was often put to heavy tasks, and proved myself a first-class goer, m spite of the stupidity of my owners and riders, and won many good stakes for them, until, as my poor old legs will show, I'm pretty well done up. Sir, I wish you, as a public medium of expounding the 'opinions of" the oppressed, to allow me to say that, from long experience and suffering, I have come to the decision that, of all God's creatures on this earth, man— the mightiest and greatest at his own estimation — is to us, his dumb and longsuffering servants, the most cruel, unjust, and ignorant, and has as much idea of our wants, wishes, and capacities as he has of his own salvation.— l am, &c, An Old Horse.