Vale ! O Equus!

Progress, Volume VII, Issue 4, 1 February 1912, Page 994

Vale ! O Equus!

By the time these notes are published, the last horse-drawn ’bus of the London General Omnibus Company will have been withdrawn from the streets. Almost, too, has the last cab or hansom disappeared. This announcement marks an epoch in London street traffic. The horse as tractive power for metropolitan vehicles is well-nigh nothing more than a memory. The petrol motor—where are the limits of its potentialities? A few years ago, who would have dared to prophecy that, even the future of the electric tram was threatened? Yet so it is to-day; and even more wonderful

is this than the usurpation by the car of the road functions of the horse. No one of us can feel anything but real sadness and sorrow as we hear the “honk” of the motor horn, which is the tolling of the horse’s death knell. All we can do, however, is not to attempt to stay the march of progress, but to be content that the motor vehicle can never supplant the quadruped on the racecourse. A motor race is a tame affair, and, as I can vouch, is prone to make one yawn deeply. Not so a contest between horses; than which there are few finer or more interesting.