The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1891-07-03
ooop 80 egRvAMre.

z0vs EzIld-EEssrasd People En GeFor
6houghtiessness Expose Their EAo-ses 60
GzEsFfnE.
A span OF carriage horses, after some
Yeas Of service, lose their style; they
become little stir. q little sore for
ward, - it may be; one OF thsm, perhaps.
is suffering from incdpienG spawn. and
on the whole it Is thought high time 90
dispose OF them, and get a fresher~
younger par. Accordingly, John, the
groom, is directed TO take them to an,
auction stable, and in due course Dives,
their old master, receives in return a
checlk-a very small check, to be sure,
but still large enough to make a
respectable contribution to foreign mis-
siOns or purchase a case of champagne
That is all he. knows about the transac-
ton. and he does not allow his mind to
dwell upon the inevitable results
But let Dives go to the auction stable
himself; let him observe the wistful,
hOmesicIc air {for horses are often home
siclz) with which the old favOrites look.
about them when they are backed out
of the unaccustomed stalls: then let
him stand by and see them whipped up
and down the stable floor TO show their
tardy PAGES, and finally knocked down
to some hard-faced, thin-lipped dealer.
It needs very little imagination to fore
see their after career. To begin with
the old companions are Separated
great grief to both, which IL requires q
long time to Obliterate- The more active
one goes into a country livery stable,
where he is hacked about by people
whose only, interest in the beast is to
take out Of him the pound of flesh for
which they have paid. He has no rest
on week days, but his Sunday task. is
the hardest
On that sacred day the reprobates of
the village who have arrived at the per
fees age of cruelty (which take to be
about nineteen.or twenty lash the old
carnage horse from one public house to
another, and bring him home exhausted
and reeking with sweat. His mate goes
into 8 Job wagon, parhaps, possibly into
a herdic, and is driven by night, lesthis
staring ribs and the painful lameness in
his hind leg should attract the notice Of
meddlesome persons. The last stage OF
many downward equine career is
found in the shape of a fruit peddler's
or junk dealers wagon, in which stu
alton there is continual exposure to
heat and cold, to rain and snow, recon-
Pensed by the least possible amount Of
food.
It may. be that one of the old horses
whose fate we are considering is finally
bought by some pOverty-striclHen farmer;
| he works. without grain in summer, and
| passes long winter nights in a cold and
draughty barn, with scanUy covering
and no bed but the floor. It is hard
that in his old age, when. like an old
man, he feels the cold most and
Is most ia need, of nOurishing food, he
should be deprived of all the comforts
the warm stall and soft bed, the. good
blankets and plentiful Oats-that were
heaped upon him in youth.
IT, as is probably the case, the old
carriage horse has been locked, his suf
! feTing IN warm weather will be greatly
increased. That form of humiliation
which we call docking is, believe, in.
1 artistic and barbarOus, and do not
doubt that before. many years it viii
become obsolete, as is now the cropping
OF horses ears, which was practiced sc
late as 1910. But still 1 should MOI
strongly condemn the owner for dock
ing his horses, or buying them after
they had been locked, which comes K
the same thing, if his intention and Gus
tom were to keep them as long as they
lived. But to dock a horse, thus de
priviug him forever of his tail, to lSeeI
him t4ll he is old or broken down, anC
then sell him for what he viii bring, Il
the very refinement of cruelty
? tic Monthly.