CRUELTY TO A PACK HORSE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2014, 25 February 1907, Page 2

CRUELTY TO A PACK HORSE.

To the Editor of tho Gisborne Times. Sir, —Very many and varied are the trials of a pack liorse, severe, and harsh his work, unsympathetic and less kindly his driver. This is the rhyme of tho road. Midst dust and flies, whip and curse, hail and sunshine, ho wends his weary way over onwards to some inhospitable station, there to disposit his load, subsist on what avails, and tlienco repeat the never varying monotony of perpetual motion. One ponders as one sees him pass. AVhat semblances of thought Hash through this living automaton; what early recollections of juvenile frolics, of luscious pasturage, enhance his mental vision, and spur him on with fervent hopes of prematuro senility, ultimating in everlasting peace S' Thus pondoring, a local Socrates tho other day was rudely shocked by tho exuberance of spirits, and youthful gait of ail apparently senile pack horses; the story now holds “Gisborne Sassiety” in convulsions. 1 would repeat it lor tho benefit of those whom the crime of impecuniosity precludes from its hallowed portals. The above sage while passing upper Gladstone road was arrested by tho gyrations of one particular' pack horse amongst six travelling townwards. Addressing the 'driver be politely enquired, from whence they had come, and tho peculiarities of one in particular. The driver being sagacious beyond his years, with a patronising smile readily answered, “we journey from X Station, five of these horses aro utilised for household chattels; the sixth carries Mrs X’s complexion.” “Oh, City Fathers,” mark! four district pack horses are rejuvenated by the needs of “Gisborne Sassiety,” and Mrs X, who ever yon are? will outshino the summer brilliancy of our colonial sky, and still reign supreme mistress midst our wondrous circle of moneyed aristocrats. “Yo Gods!” Is it in vain Thackeray wrote his Book of Snobs, or the Divine by his Darwinian process of evolution placed sagacity as one attribute of the overworked Poverty Bay pack horse. —I am, etc., PACK SADDLE.