DISHONEST DEALING.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160723, 9 August 1920, Page 10

DISHONEST DEALING.

Mr A. Reid, of Knapdale, , when speaking in support of a remit to the Southland Farmers’ Union Conference, which urged the Government, when making new appointments of stock inspectors, to appoint men competent to give advice to farmers regarding improvements in breeding stock, stressed the importance of such a measure to young farmers to whom expert stockmen would be able to give valuable advice (says the Southland News). “Take horses, for instance,” said Mr Reid. “There is more crooked work done in horse dealing than in any other class of stock. Only the other clay a young fellow, a returned soldier, who has a place near me, came over to my farm with a dray and a team of three horses. We were discussing the horses, and he told me he was lucky in getting them, as they were all seven-year-olds. I looked at the nearest one, and to my amazement made it out to he 21. The next I made to be 14, and tbe one in the shafts also over 20. The young fellow persuaded me to tell him what age I made them out to be, but I could see he did not believe me. So I took him across to an animal in the next paddock, which I told him to my certain knowledge was IS, and showed him the points by which its age could be reckoned.” Mr Reid classed the practice of fraudulent cheating as scandalous. and expressed the opinion that it was certainly time preventive measures were introduced.