A Procession of Living Skeletons.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 2, Issue 79, 16 May 1871, Page 6

A Procession of Living Skeletons.

The correspondent of the Times at La Vert Galant, outside Paris, narrates the following incident :—" Passing from La Vert Galant to Livry we ascended the hill to Clicky, where we met a procession of French carts coming from the forts, in which they had been employed in drawing ammunition. There were about thirty of them, and nearly all had two horses attached in tandem fashion. If there were a Eoyal Humane Society here, it would have brought every one of the animals before a magistrate, and applied that the poor brutes might at once meet death by the pole-axe. I could not diave believed that horses in such a condition could have walked. They were living anatomies. Scarcely one of them had a pound of flesh on his whole carcase. Nearly all were white, Not only their bones were visible, but their veins, with the thin blood running through them, and positively making their coats appear pink rather than white. An exclamation of horror rose from every one that passed. The poor men and boysmost of them were lads—who led them were also starved looking." They wore old cloaks, which were in tatters, and they seemed scarcely able to lift the wooden shoes in which they crept along."