Morning journal and courier., 1884-08-21
Hospitals and Turkish Baths for
 Horses.

The Great Northern railway has just set
 up hospital in London for their sick or in l jured horses at cost of eight or ten thou sand pounds. The company has in London somewhere about one thousand horses, many of them very fine, powerful animals, and worth from sixty to sixty-fve pounds apiece in the market. They have eight hundred or whereabouts at work in connection with their luggage, and another two hundred for their service of omnibuses running between Kings Cross and the other terminal stations in the metropolis. Their horses, therefore, may properly be taken to represent some 950, GOO or 960, ,O00, and the health of this great stud may at any time prove serious matter in the finances of the company.
 The new building is just outside the com panys new station at Totteridge. Itis pie turesque and interesting place and delight fully situated among green fields and shady lanes and cottage gardens, just now as gay as gay be with flowers. As the visitor strolls through the place it is easy to see that the creatures are having good time and that | they are we'll aware of it. There are three or four boxes whose occupants indeed are las boring, it is difficult to doubt, under con- { siderable weight of apprehension. They are probationers whose maladies not quite understood, and who may be in few days passed on for course of physic and Turkish baths; oi may be led out to a brief interview | with a professor of the pole-axe under con tract with the firm to deal as briefly as possi- ble with all who show the slightest symptoms of the dreaded glanders. These doubtful pa tients are in boxes lined with sheet iron, so as easily to admit of being washed and~disin- l fected, and the dullest of imaginations could hardly fail to discover something peculiarly \ anxious and dismal in the aspect of the pa ! tients as their visitors look in upon them and discuss the possibilities of pole-axing, just as
 in some of the other boxes one may fancy that there is rather dejected dropping of the 1 ''jib" when their readiness for work on Mon | day is alluded to. Many of them that are l sent down here," says the superintendent, I "don't want physic or any sort of treatment. All they want is little rest and change of ! air, just like anybody else, and ill a weeks | time they will pick up wonderfully"
 One feature of the place the company have gone to considerable expense to render very complete and effective. It is now some four or five and twenty years since the Turkish bath was first populariZed in this country, 1 and for many years past Messrs. Pickford Sl Co. have habitually treated their four-footed ! invalids to this Oriental luxury. They have ! all the necessary appliances s-somewhat rough but thoroughly eficient-for subjecting their animals to dry moist heat of about 150 degrees Fahrenheit, and for the necessary shampooing afterwards. For certain diseases particularly diseases of the skin-they have found this treatment very valuable and most of their horses that go down to the hospital go through the Turkish bath before leaving as a means of thoroughly cleansing and in vigorating them The new bath premises is
 quite model of it's kind. The horse to be
 treated is led into the chamber, penned se- curely in stall in the center of the floor,
 and steam and hot air are then admitted
 through grating in the floor from specially constructed boilers and furnace below In
 adj jacent chamber provision is made for a deIuge of hot and cold water drawn from tanks overhead, and there is third chamber for subsequent drying. Arrangements also comprise an ingeniously contrived closet for
 drying the cloths used in the business. Al
 together this is probably the most complete and convenient thing of the kind in exist ence in connection with such institution, and if all the horses in the Great Northern stud could only be made aware of the light
 and comfortable quarters the luxurious baths and delicious pastures provided for them at Totteridge, it is to be feared that there would be deal of malingering among them. It would not be at all necessary to get up any serious disease. Most of the animals here have nothing more important than an inf1u- enza, cold or general debility, and among them it is pleasant to find several who are
 what their custodian calls free horses"- horses, that is, he explains, that have been working in pairs, and have been too consci
 entious in their work, and have done more 1 than their share. They have run themselves low and poor in consequence, and their two l OF three weeks down here may therefore be regarded as reward of virtue. It is almost
 | a pity that something of the same kind can
 | not be set up for the men employed on the
 | line, so that when they feel used up and grow
 thin and feeble, they can betake themselves
 l for two or three weeks to as quiet retreat,
 | and with minds much at ease.