The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1898-09-16
OLD AGE OF THE HORSE.
The Last Stage OF His Career Doing
Cab Duty at the Railroad station.

Cab Duty at the Railroad Station.
tOne of the er-failing causes of
error in human judgment is the ten
dency to draw general conclusions
from ones immediate and familiar en-
vironments," said Mr.. Suburbanite re-
fieetively, as he gazed out of the club
window.
THAT sounds dyspeptic." said Brown,
and I'm not surprised. This business
Of eating breakfast with a watch in
front Of you and then making a mile
dash for the train is enough to under
mine any constitution. You see spots
before your eyes. don't you, and you
feel
Wrong again, Brown" interrupted
Mr.. Suburbanite. My reflections on
the proneness of human judgment to
err were not prompted by dyspepsia,
which have not, but by horses"
Which you have not, Also" said
Brown. cor your friends would venture
to hunt you up"
Just the ordinary horse of com
merce, continued Suburbanite, (which
draws cab to-day, street car to-
morrow and then is relegated to a
suburban livery stable from which it
limps to expose its wretchedness when
ever its services are needed, If a per-
son should form his idea of a horse
from the specimens that pass their
declining years around the station at
Suburbanville waiting for their driy-
ers to pick up stray fare, or in the
livery stables of that town, he would
noble animal was characterized by
an irregular gait and many ribs. It's a
pleasure to sit here and watch we'll
fed cab horses on the avenue. When
first went up to Suburbanville to look
the place over was deeply shocked by
the sight which greeted me at Mount
Green, which was the first stop. Lined
up alongside of the station, attached
to public cabs, were a row of phan-
tom horses such as l never had seen
before. They were worse than the
poor old animals which used to draw
ine Fifth avenue stages, and as | look
ed at them / expected to see them top
pie over like ninepins in a row. Two
stations beyond as~Suburbanville.
looked to see what the cab horses of
Suburbanville were like and every one
was blanketed They stood nose on
and the eyes of each horse were ami
mated. Later I discovered why they
were animated
Cab, sir?' shouted the eager driv-
ers
81 nodded. In a jiffy every blanket
was whipped off and score of skele-
ton horses were exposed. A night
mare resulting from Welsh rarebit
would be thing of joy by comparison
with Suburbanyille's cab horses. This
brigade of skeletons bore down on me
in a rush and in desperation I selected
one of them. By clever manipulation
the driver pushed his horse alongside
IF the walk and crawled into a COW
cred carriage that might have been
palmed off as Washington's coach at
D. AR. picnic.
My driver didn't use whip on his
horse. He carried stout stick with
which he would jab the horse, and the
horse would make jump ahead. Every
Iab was represented by jump, and
there was no jumps without jabs.
How did it happen said l to
the driver, that when l reached the
walk every one of those cab horses
was wide awake and a minute later
they were all asleep?'
1.-THE driver was so surprised that he
stopped poking his horse and the horse
came to a standstill at once
It's this way. said the driver, with
jab at the horse. Just as the train
comes in one of us goes down the line
with a bag of oats from which we
give each horse a Whit That wakes
'em up for about two minutes. You
see, most every one up here keeps his
own horses. and it's hard on us cab
men. We don't make enough to buy
oats for the horses all the time SO we
make it up by letting them sleep. Ma
Mia here is asleep now"