RAILWAY TRUCKING OF STOCK.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4527, 14 February 1923, Page 2

RAILWAY TRUCKING OF STOCK.

Sir,—Tlie shortcomings of the Railway' Department and its clumsy methods have been much commented upon in the press during the last few days till one is loath to add another complaint to the already long list, but there is one thing I feel called upon to report. That is, the absence of any drinking troughs or hoses in the station yards where pigs and other animals are herded this 'hot weathei. Yesterday, at the local station, 300 pigs were trucked, and though the weather w.as extremely hot and the pigs were dying of thirst and heat, there was not even a hose by which the.v could be cooled down. One lay dead, and others, I’m sure, would not last the night out. 1 have on other occasions seen them bleeding from the mouth, and gasping for air on hot days’, when a few buckets of water would have comforted them, and perhaps saved their lives. Why' won l the .farmers complain ? In this particular yard a water service could be erected for a few pounds, and much cruelty would be avoided if those in authority would but look into the matter. No wonder tlie railways don’t pay. Here were trucked about £lOOO worth of pigs in one day, anl the water to spray these animals and to give them drink could be installed perhaps for the cost of the days freight. But nothing is done, and one is obliged to send away his pigs under these inhuman circumstances or keep them. Should some ighorant settler cram a dozen ifowls into a box fit only for two or three, leaving them too, without water to drink, he would be likely to find himself before long in the Magistrate’s Court to answer a charge of cruelty and neglect, but our Railway Department is safe

from any such interference, and so the 1 cruelty and neglect go oh all through the summer, and no one raises a protest. I maintain that this is a subject for every farmers’ union, agricultural association, or any kindred society to look ipto at once ; and also the unnecessary delay of stock trains, when starving, thirsty creatures are bumped, shunted, and delayed to such an extent that—as on a recent occasion—a truck of animals was 24 hours reaching Hikutaia from Pukekohe.—l am, etc., E. J. WALTERS. February 13, 1923.