The times., 1898-06-19
Punishment of the Horse.
From the Philadelphia Times.)


A horseless city!
Z Have you ever thought of such place?
Even If you have it is doubtful if you
have given the subject an hour serious
consideration. Yet it is not unlikely that
we of Philadelphia. at least will dwell
in such u city in the almost immediate
future. The equine race seems doomed
To civic banishment. This may seem
wild statement, but the wildness disap-
/ pears in the light of a few years exper-
ience. 1t seems but yesterday when all
! the street cars of the city were drawn by
horses. Now the car horse is almost a
/ thing if the past; remembrance. He
couldn't compete with electricity. That
! wonderful fluid is harnessed to car for
i half the cost of horse-fesh, and does the
/ work of the equine not only more rapidly
and cleanly, but far more cheapIy That
! fact ended the career of the car horse, and
now he is only used in Wayback and on
| few lines in New York, which is no
toriously slow in adopting new ideas and
inventions Electricity is TO be used to
! do the freight and pleasure traffic of
cities and it will do it so cheaply and
rapidly that the coal cart, the delivery
wagon, the milk wagon, the furniture
wagon, and all other kinds of vehicles will
be impelled by it instead of drawn by
horses. The time in which this will hap
/ pen is probably much nearer than you
think.
/ Talking yesterday upon this subject
i with a man thoroughly conversant with
/ il, he said to the narrator that it will not
be very long before all the big depart
( ment stores will be running electric de-
-xrE4a. -. -
horses cost $15 a month for keeping. That
is $50 year. The battery for such a
vehicle costs $3.50, and it will last at the
lowest estimate five years, at cost of
$50 a year. Ten dollars a year is amply
sufficient for all the possible repairs. 1t
costs one-third of a cent mile for cleo
trio power for such a vehicle. Twenty
five miles a day is about the average
work of delivery wagaon. AT eight
cents Il day for electricity the cost of
! running such a vehicle year of three
hundred and sixty days is less than $50:
but call it that. Add 1t to the $50 and il
makes but s90 which is just half what il
costs to keep a horse. and this estimate
does not take into consideration at all
the animals cost price
The banishment of horses from city
would greatly lessen the tax and disease
and death rate. More than so per cent
OF the cost of street cleaning is due to
tIle use Oh HOFSSS- IN Otner words, II there
We're no, equine quadrupeds in this city
it could be cleaned and kept clean for
half the money now expended for that
purpose. This means the saving of
money, hundreds of thousands of dollars
year, to the taxpayer The solid ex-
! crement of horses is prolific breeder of
diseases. 1t is almost as fine a breeding
/ place as jellies are when left exposed to
the action of dust and the atmosphere.
1t dries and becomes trampled and ground
into fine dust. which not only disfigures
and ruins the bottom of ladies' skirts, but
it gets into the eyes, the air passages and
the lungs of all who have to encounter it
as it is blown hither and thither by the
wind This is not "a pleasant thing to
think or talk about, but it is an evil that
has to be discussed and abated Many
pulmonary ailments are due to this troub-
lesome dust. 1t breeds flies by the million
and these pests of Summer are prolific
disseminators of poisonous germs ami mi
crobes. With the banishment of the
horse will come the abatement to large
extent of the fly nuisance, and every
housekeeper will be glad of that