Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-10
NO USE FOR HORSES.
Pittsburg Liverymen Talk of the De-
cay of Their Business
BECAUSE OF RAPID TRANSIT.
The Number of the Animals Dispensed With
in This City.
EFFECT ON OTHER LINES OF TRADE

1t would seem tnat cities VIII IN IeW
years cease to furnish horse markets worth
speaking Of In this city the substitution
of cable and electric cars for horse power
has done away with the use of ], 500 horses
in this one department alone, and rapid
transit has caused the discrimination of
the services of 800 to 400 more in the livery
business. The people who refuse to ride
in the poor mans carriage when it carries
them three or five times as fast as horses
can are few in number, and as for the
revelers who require the use of cabs to
take them home when their own locomo-
ton fails, they go but a short distance
supporting the numerous hackmen who
formerly kept horses on the street all
night.
At the stable of John Burns & Son it was
stated that orders for night service were
now generally taken by telephone, much to
the comfort of the poor beasts whose labor
formerly consisted largely in standing in
the inclement weather on three legs taking
cat maps. This kind of service, once very
remunerative, is considered now of small
consequence by livery men. In round
numbers, 1000 horses have been laid off
duty in Pittsburg and Allegheny, and in
the United States at least 100, 900.
Establishments Out of Business
Inquiry among livery men shows that
while nearly all have reduced there equine
force about score of livery establishments
have gone out of business altogether except
that some have been converted entirely
into boarding stables. Elmore & Murry,
of Duquesne Way; Andrew Jackman &
Southside; Archibald s. Shelton, Third
avenue; Thos. Green, Southside; John
Voelker, Southside; O'Neill & Gleason,
Wilson & Rodgers, Allegheny; Meanor &
Harper, D. Mcintosh & Son, Wallaker and
Cowen & Finn have all dismantled their
establishments, while McNulty & Sons
have discontinued one stable and Patterson
Bros. find one stable all they can operate
proftably under changed conditions
Now this means great readjustment of
industry and the effects are visible in the
reduced value of ordinary horses. While
flyers bring good prices, horses in the rank
of mediocrity are quite cheap. An attempt
was made two weeks ago to sell a large
stable, but the prices offered were so low
that the owners decided to await the Open
ing of spring business in hope of better de-
mand. In view of the extent to which
horse power has been displayed hay seems
to be abnormally high, especially where it is
considered that the crop is large and re-
ceipts liberal. 1t would seem that the sur
plus horses must be ''eating their heads off,
as they have neither been sent to the schin-
deries nor made into bologna.
Curtailing the Market.
There is prospect that the future horse
and feed markets will be greatly curtailed,
as notwithstanding constant rumors of
European wars they do not materialize, and
with the present capacity for destruction
cavalry will not cut the figure in future as
it has in past wars, and when trsmways are
laid and electric cars run over our present
mud roads, as they will be by the end of the
century, horses will not likely cut the
figure in the census of 1900 that they did in
1890 If a trust does not get possession it
is reasonable to hope that 10 years from now
than 20 cents q pound. Some people now
think q little more than half that price
with cattle wholesaling at AZ cents pound
would be nearer the correct figure.
1t is well within the boundary to say
that 100, 600 horses have been displaced in
the principal cities of the country. Allow
ing the moderate ration of Is pounds of hay
and three gallons of oats per day, the gap
in consumption will, as coon as their num-
bers can be reduced, be 273, $50 tons of hay
and IL, 245, 900 bushels of oats, worth from
s., ,ooo, 900 to 10000, 900, and this is far
within the mark. for in short time the
bulk of city express business will be done
by cable or electric cars The greater part |
of the horses displaced in this city are still
within the radius of which this is the dis
tributing point
Some Rather Extensive Figures.
They still get their rations from it, or our
market would be lessened in hay and oats
or their equivalents 6, 900 tons of hay and
$50, 900 bushels Of oats, the produce of about |
II, 900 acres of land, average crop, and in
the whole country 900, 600 acres While |
this does not seem q very great matter it |
means directly, not remotely, the depriva- |
tion of employment of 4, 600 men and 5000 |
horses necessary to raise the crop specified,
and it is but faint admonition of the |
future.
Doubtless as in other displacements there |
will be readjustment and in % years the |
country will offer development in other
directions, just as it did when the Pennsyl- |
vania canal was built, . project which some
thought would ruin Western Pennsylvania
as they thought it would destroy the market
for horses and horse feed, whereas it in
creased the market to such an extent that
values of these products rose 800 per cent
The late development, however, must take
some other direction, as in the last Is wears
In the absence of wars the great cities have
furnished the market for the farmers sur
plus feed and horses, whereas horses from
this time forward are like to become yearly