The central record. (Lancaster, Ky.) 18??-current, 1915-08-19
MISSOURI COUNTY
WAR.HORSE CAMP.
lKansas CITY star


Lathrop, Mo When Fifty or sixty
horses die here in a day nobody pays
any particular attention to il. It's only
the normal death rate For in Lathrop
at present there are more horses than
were ever assembled before in the
worlds history 30, 600 Of them
To Lathrop come all the horses and
mules purchased for the British army
Because Of a lack of transports to take
them across the Atlantic they have been
accumulating. until now all Clinton
county is virtually one vast feed lot
When shipping" or "barn" fever
broke out among the horses recently
there were MANY rumors Of an epidem-
&C. Even the State health inspectors
came to Lathrop when they heard that
hundreds of animals were dying. The
army veterinarians received them calm.
ly. admitted the hundreds Of deaths
and then proceeded to hand out some
statistics.
The statistics made the epidemic
stories shrink wonderfully The deaths,
the veterinarians showed figured out
just about one-half Of per cent a week.
And they dehed the inspectors to ind a
farmer who could show as good re-
cord. The inspectors agreed and left.
The British continue to lose some SO.
900 worth of horses a day.
Disease is not the only agent that
keeps the horses from being killed by
German bullets Their habit of mill
ing has caused many deaths On being
changed from on pasture 20 another
the entire herd of horses will immedi-
ately set OUT on a dead run and make
the circuit of the whole field Some
times they run for hours until many
fall dead from exhaustion If the
bunch is large it may not be able to
make the turns at the corners. In that
case a quarter mile of fence disappears
in twlnkling and the veterinarians
are sewing up wire cuts for days.
The disaster of the sunken road at
Waterloo was duplicated here few
days ago Eleven hundred horses were
being driven along a road short DIS
lance east of town, when they came to
favine partly filled with water from
the heavy rains. The horses stampeded
and the front ranks were swept into
the muddy pool The frantic animals
were literally tramped into a solid mass
of bodies that filed the rayline from
bank to bank over the struggling
mass what was left of the herd galoped,
Many Ct the horses were dead by the
time the stampede passed. Othets
were terribly wounded by the battering
hoofs Some We're saved by holding
their heads above water until they could
be extricated from the tangle of bodies,
but when they had been taken out there
still remained a gruesome task for the
skinning gang.
There are four skinning gangs now
aid sometimes even that large force
gets SO far behind that horses are
dumped in the long burial bitches with
out their hides being saved For a
time one man, Charles Tilman, was
given the hides for burying the dead
horses. As they brought from 81 to S.
each on the market he was reputed to
be getting about 81 400 a week for the
work. A later arrangement is under
stood to have brought his income down
somewhat from from the figures at.
tanned only by vaudeville headliners -
and that, perhaps, in stage money,
All Lathrop has shared to some de-
gree, the prosperity OF the horse skin
ners For eleven months shining
stream of British gold has poured thru
the town and few are those who have
not been able to dip their hands in the
current Building have gone up with
the rapldity of a boom mining camp.
Huge hay barns. two blocks long and a
hundred feet WIDE, feed barns, a grain
elevator, office and acres of shipping
pens have all come as the result of the
horse business.
In the Boer War in 1901 England
handled l,2 600 animals through the
depot here and that number has pos
sibly already been equrled The aver
age price now is Sl75 for horses and
| 5000. for mules.