The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1888-05-05
New York Mail and Express.l


has been told hundred times, however, it is
not necessary to repeat it here.
Twenty-Five years ago the Bulls Head was
in its glory. Then it was the rendezvous of
stout, red-faced horse dealers, who drank
deeply, swore loudly and struggled fercely
each to cheat the other, and the old Bulls
Head tavern was the scene of many joyous
bout between boisterous drovers. Money
was made quickly and spent quite as rapidly
All around the tavern were long COW stables
and rudy, strong-lunged anctioneer
reigned supreme as the most important per-
son in the neighborhood.
All this is changed just as most things have
changed in the last quarter of a century,
The men who frequent the Bulls Head now
do not drink deeply. They do not swear
loudly and, to all outward appearances, they
do not struggle fiercely to cheat each other,
but to use popular If somewhat unclassical
expression, "they get there just the same"
The old tavern, too, is gone and the big
punch bowl that graced its Old-fashiOned bar
has gone to that home from which punch
bowls have not yet been known to return.
There is Bulls Head Hotel now which is
more in accordance with present times al
| though less picturesque. The straight un-
adulterated uncorked, simon pure lightning
that was the favorite drink in the tavern Of
We Olden time, has given away to the MAN
haitian Cocktail" which the smart bartender
! Of the modern hotel mixes with neatness and
| dispatch. There is only one of the old one
story stables left. Big. five-story buildings,
| Win morse Stables on every 1OOf, ana with
great elevators to carry the horses up and
| down from the bottom to the top have taken
| their places, and the red-faced auctiOneer is
| no more. He has gone the way Of all flesh
and the grass has been growing green or gray
/ as the seasons wiled, over his grave for
many years. Ehen fltgdcesl Would that
some of the days that are gone were with us
| again!
The Bulls Head Of today is a very bust
ness-like place, even If it Is trifie more
/ ~ fhot 4 ne ~ ha ha mo o.
| now covers about three square blocks, and it
| is as quiet and orderly locality as one can
| find. Nevertheless, without noise or hustle,
| some $15,000000 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 sub
| jjected to a long life Of hard work and hard
| knocks, but it is, all things considered, a
| pretty big business. 1t is the common i'm
preston that steam and electricity are les
| sening the usefulness of horseS.--Ihls Is
| mistake. The traffic on horses is now larger
| than it ever has been, and IS steadily inereas-
| ing. There is now in New York city, work.
| ing in one capacity and another, for the not
| always nobler animal, man, 100000 horses.
| This would give horse to every third per-
| son 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 eff stock were taken at
this market. The best were sold to individ-
ual dealers, and the refuse were sent to the
public market at Seventy-fourth street, on
| the East side, and sold in open auction.
| Now strictly individual business is done
| around 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 1000
horses Of any kind upon receipt of two-line
telegraph dispatch. The business is now re-
duced to a system. The greatest customers
that the Bulls Head dealers have are the
surface car companies. Probably half Of the
horses that come to New York go direct to
the stables Of the street car companies.
Few persons would believe that the ami
mails that drag the street cars are picked
horses But sorry looking though they may
be, they are carefully selected for this very
work.
1t may be that the Broadway and Seventh
Avenue Railroad Company finds that it needs
horses. 1t Immediately communicates with
dealer ct the Bulls Head and the dealer
communicates with his agent somewhat as
follows:
To Colt, Peoria, Ill;
Send one carload three-fourths- good.
The agent understands this the reader
may not Blank simply wants carload of
three fourth horses, and three-fourth horse
is horse that is neither big nor little, the
only kind of a horse that is of any use in the
street car business. The advent of elevated
railroads has compelled the surface men to
see that the cars make quick trips. Small
horses could not stand the strain of dragging
heavy-loaded cars and big Clydesdale or
Percheron horses are too slow, and hence the
three-fourth horses, that combine strength,
size and speed.
1t is rough mill that cal horses tread, and
they don't last long. When the car horse
is bought he is usually worth S175 or $780,
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 Sc to $40, and in
his prematurely old age he can drag a pillow
or narrow and becomean equine philosoph-
er. A car horses life is not happy one,you
remark? No, but fortunately for him it is
short.
Car horses come from Iowa, Illinois and
Indiana principally. Breeding stock Is being
reduced to a 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 have seen such horses
there twenty years ago. There, are big,
strong, mild-eyed Percherons and equally
big Clydesdales that accept their surround
ngs with that easy good nature that some
times characterizes big men. There are
clean limbed horses from West Virginia and
the blue grass meadows of Kentucky, and
handsome animals from Maine, the only
Eastern state that seems capable of produc-
ing good horse. There are some very hand
some beasts in the long row of stalls, some of
LUcIl III 10 uTdW u king CIldIlOl, IL luuttu,
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-
chevious ponies from the Indian Territory.
A carload of them arrived few days ago,
and they seem as much at home in New
York as on their native prairies. Very short
of limb are these animals, but they are deep
of flank and chest, and could carry man 100
miles in day without great deal of dis
tress. They are all the rage now. Most of
them will command fancy prices. They are
wanted now for another purpose than that
of carrying festive buckson hunt for scalps
and next summer they will figure
in the more dangerous game Of polo, and
will be ridden by class Of bucks from the
dirt-besmeared gentlemen who. formerly
beStrode them, and fair ladies Will applaud
their strength and quickness at Newport.
The Percherons and Clydesdales, big as they
are, do not command as high price as a few
of the ponies. They range in price from $500
to 81 200 per team, and they are bought main
main, from Michigan, where stock breeders
have crossed the breeds Of big horses with
wonderful success. These equine Anacks
are easily LED. When they go to work draw
ing brewery wagons, they are said TO sue
cumb to surrounding influences, to learn to
drink beer out of bucket and to acquire
other bad habits. They never become adj
dicted to profanity, however: They grow
stout and lazy, but live to ripe old age.
Maine can claim one good thing beside its
temperance record 1t raises good carriage
horses. 1t is the only State in the East,
aside from Pennsylvania, where good road
horse is bred. From down around Lancaster
Pa, good roadsters are sent to the Bulls
Head stables. Other good horses came from
West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana, and
a man with from five to eight hundred dol
lars in his pocket can get good carriage or
riding horse from any Of these States sent
direct to the Bulls Head.
You will not find any race horses at the
Bulps Head Race horses are bred for a
particular purpose and by private parties.
You might get hunter here, but on the
whole it would be better not to waste time
irving. Bulls Head is very long ON car
horses, but is usually short on aristocratic
but less useful animals. Honesty and bust
ness methods prevail in this horse market
now. There was time when an unsuspect-
and proud of mien at the Bulls Head and
proudly imagine he had secured ssa bargain
horse would lose color. droop and die. Then
the farmer would realize that the horse had