The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1888-04-28
100000 HORSES A YEAR.
,om the M y MaR and Erpress.

From the N. T. Mail and Express.
An ancient and decrepit horse, that
looked as though it might in its earlier
DAYS have associated with Rosinante, the
noble mare that carried the Knight of La
Mancha through his immortal journeys,
dragged an old junk cart YEARLY through
Twenty-fourth street yesterday unmoved
by the sarcastic remarks upon its appear
ance that were made by unfeeling boys on
the street
Just as it neared Third avenue the anti
ouated charger paused and looked around,
unheeding the blows by which its driver
sought to urge it to further action. After
moments contemplation the weary animal
deliberately laid down and died, seemingly
with full understanding of what he was
doing. The worn-out steed could probably
have chosen no more appropriate spot on
which 10 yield up the ghost, for it was In
the very heart of the greatest horse mart
in the United States. 1t may be that this
same horse had been bartered for and sold
a quarter of century ago on the very spot
where it died. =,
It was the Bulls Head then. 1t is the
Bulls Head now But it is very much
changed. The Bulls Head has history.
Most things have, in fact, but the history
of the Bulls Head is not commonplace.
Twenty-Five years ago the Bulls Head
was in its glory. Then it was the rendez-
vous of stout, red-faced horse dealers, who
drank deeply, swore loudly, and struggled
fiercely each to cheat the other, and the
old Bulls Head tavern was the scene of
many joyous bout between boisterous
droyers. Money was made quickly and
spent quite as rapidly. All around the
.aro-,, ...a-a lowe aaw stables and a ruddy.
strong-lunged auctioneer rc1gned supreme
as the most important person in the neigh
borhood
All this is changed, just as most things
have changed in the last quarter of cen
fury.
MORE BUsINEsS-LIKE NOW.
The Bulls Head of to-day is very bus
iness-like place, even if it is trife more
quiet than it used to be- The horse mar
ket now covers about three square blocks,
and it is as quiet and orderly locality as
one can find. Nevertheless, without noise
or hustle, some S15,000,000 worth of horse
flesh is bought and sold here every year.
This may not be so big business as is
done by some of the markets OF Paris,
where horses are sold for more humane
purpose than to be subjected to long life
of hard work and hard knocks, but it is,
all things considered, pretty big business.
1t is the common impression that steam
and electricity are lessening the usefulness
of the horses. This is mistake. The
traffic in horses is now larger than it ever
has been, and is steadily increasing. There
are now in New York city, working in one
capacity and another, for the not always
nobler animal, man, 600, 900 horses. This
would give horse to every third person in
New York. The New York market yearly
demands and obtains 100000 horses, and
pretty nearly all of these are sold around
the Bulls Head. No more auctions are
held. Formerly all kinds of stock were
taken at this market The best were sold
to individual dealers, and the refuse were
sent to the public market at Seventy-fourth
street, and sold in open auction. Now a
strictly individual business is done around
the Bulls Head. Each dealer has his own
customers, and each has agents in the stock
regions in the West and South who are
able to fill an order for one or 900 horses
of any kind upon receipt of two-line tel
egraph dispatch. The business is now re-
duced to system. The greatest custom
ers that the Bulls Head dealers have are
the surface car companies. Probably half
of the horses that come to New York so
direct to the stables of the. street car COM
panies.
Few persons would believe that the ami
mails thM drag the street cars are picked
horses But sorry looking though they
may be, they are carefully selected for the
very work
1t NAV be that the Broadway and Sew
enth Avenue Railroad Company finds that
it needs horses. 1t Immediately commu-
nicates with dealer at the Bulls Head
and the dealer communicates with his agent
somewhere as follows:
To Colt, Peoria, ILL.,:
Send one car load three fourths-good
BLANK.
The agent understands this; the reader
may not Blank simply wants car load
of three-fourth horses, and three-fourth
horse is horse that is neither big nor lit
tie, the only kind of a horse that is of any
use in the street car business The advent
of elevated railroads has compelled the sur
face men to see that their cars make quick
trips. Small horses could not stand the
strain of dragging heavily loaded cars and
big Clydesdale or Percheron horses are too
slow, and hence the three-fourth horses,
that combine strength, size and speed.
THE CAR HORSES ROUGH MILL.
1t is rough mill that car horses tread,
and they don't last long. When the car
horse is bought he is usually worth $40
or $3.50. On an average he lasts five
years, and at the end of that period some
Long Island or Westchester county farmer
can have him for any sum ranging from
So to $50, and in his prematurely old age
he can drag pillow or harrow and become
an equine philosopher. A car horses life
is not happy one, you remark I? No, but
fortunately for him it is short.
Gar nOFSeS come from IOWA, llllnOiS anu
Indiana principally. Breeding stock is
being reduced to science in the West,
and the much-derided county fair has had
not little TO do with this But there are
other sorts of horses bought and sold
around the Bulls Head. You couldn't
see such horses there twenty years ago.
There are big, strong, mild-eyed Percher-
ons, and equally big Clydesdale that accept
their surroundings with that easy, good
nature that sometimes characterizes big
men. There are clean-limbed horses from
West Virginia, and the blue grass meadows
of Kentucky, and the handsome animals
from Maine, the only Eastern State that
seems capable of producing good horse.
There are some very handsome beasts in
the long rows of stalls, some of them fit to
draw kings chariot, if, indeed, it were
not true that almost any kind of a horse is
not too good to drag the kings who are now
posing nervously before the world In
the next stalls to the big Percherons in the
Bulls Head may be seen some small. mis-