Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-31
WATER TROUGH ECONOMY.
To the Age-Herald:

To the e-Herald:
 I wish to add my voice to the general protest against the injustice and false economy of cutting off the water from the horse troughs. I am informed that the saving thus effected amounts to about $120 annually. It seems to me that any one who will think about the matter at all will be able to see that even though the saving was double this amount to the city it will be at a cost of at least $10 for $1 to a class of our
 hardest working and highest taxed of our citizens. refer to our draymen and hack drivers who own their teams These men as a rule live some distance from the business portion of the city and keep their teams at home. Under the present conditions these men are forced to drive home for water or to beg it about here and there, or to let their horses go without. A laborer work ing in the sun will drink five or six times more water than he will when doing nothing, and he will want it very often. hard-Worked horse cannot get it for himself and does not complain, but if he does not get water every two hours through the hot summer days he will show his distress in his steady loss of flesh and strength. There are many horses going about our streets all the time so thin and feeble that it is cruel to work them, all because their drivers are too careless or ignorant to water them often enough. It is a well-known physiological fact that horses not prop erly watered will not only grow poorer and weaker, but that they will consume 20 per cent more feed than other horses which get plenty of water and keep fat Hack drivers and draymen pay privi- lege tax, street tax, poll tax, and, in some instances, a personal tax on their teams all of which will foot up, I venture to larger faY nrOnOrfiOnafQlV than iS paid by any other class. The water com pany, I understand, has a rule against any of its patrons giving water to out Siders. This should be not a matter of charity but of justice. These men paid their privilege tax in January under the tacit, but full assurance that the foun- tains would be kept running during the summer months.
 The dog is another factor. Notwith- standing the super-human zeal of the dog catcher the dog is always with us in considerable numbers. Hydrophobia is more prevalent in the hottest weather and in the coldeSt weather, because, like any other disease, it spreads easiest when its subjects are debiltated-in the first case by heat, exhaustion and lack of nourishment G. e., food and water) and in the second by lack of food and cold exhaustion.
 The dogs avail themselves of the horse troughs, and although the risk is small an epidemic of hydrophobia might be started among them by a few days of eXhausting heat and no water.
 Leaving aside the question of justice to the licensed draymen and hackmen, as well as a consideration of that feel ing for the lower animals which is sup posed to be resident in mans civilized
 breast, I earnestly protest that the saw
 ing is too small to be worth the risk of causing one case of hydrophobia, even
 though it were in the person of the small
 est dog in town. This protest would
 have been written sooner if the writer
 had had any intimation as to where the
 money was to come from, by means of
 which we now enjoy with manifest pride
 the luxury of having the fire plugs paint
 ed white and of few other similar im-
 proyements. JUNIUS.
 ,-.