HORSE COMING BACK.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4765, 17 October 1924, Page 4

HORSE COMING BACK.

POINTS LEARNED BY EXPERIENCE MOTOR NOT INVINCIBLE. A few years ago the horse was in danger of being driven off the streets of London by the motor (states a London correspondent), but repentant business firms are now leading him back. It hats been discovered that for “short work” about London thoroughfares .the horse van is more economical than the motor van. In addition, the horse lasts longer than the motor engine. A horse is fit for work until it is fourteen or fifteen years eld, but the motor engine is fit for the scrap heap long before that time. And the cost of feeding a horse is not much more than the cost of keeping a motor van in good running, order. There is no tax on horses, but the motor van has to pay an annual tax of £1 per horse-power. Moreover, the horse doesn’t break down on the road, as the motor van is apt to do after it has seen its best days, “My motor idfry was worn out before it was paid for,” said one London man in a small way of business who purchased a lorry on the instalment system! “It wap never such good value as the horse and van. Reliability means more to me than rapidity.”

It is an interesting fact that many of the London municipalities, after using motor lorries for the collection of house and street refuse, are going back to the old horse vehicles. The Westminster City Council has over fifty horses in use, and the municipal veterinary surgeon, in a letter to the council, refers to the probability of more horses being needed for municipal work, “having regard to .the fact that other corporations are going back to horses.”

The horse-driven vehicle has been blamed for the congestion of traffic in the main thoroughfares of London which results in a long quene of vehicles of every description being held up at every street crossing during the busy houns of the day. It has betn contended that slow-moving traffic, such as horse-drawn vehicles, should be restricted to the side streets during the busy hours, but this would only partially solve the traffic problem, as the slow-moving vehicles must cross the main thoroughfares at many points. A more drastic proposal for the complete abolition of the horsedrawn vehicle from the streets of London is to come before the County Council; but, in view of the fact that many firms are finding the horse more economical than the motor, and that the animal is replacing the motor hi municipal work, this proposal is not likely to be carried.

The motor-car has almost entirely displaced the carriage throughout England. Here and there in country lanes one encounters an elderly invalid . lady reclining in an open Laf.dat drawn by a quiet old horse and driven by an ancient family retainer. These are all relics of the Victorian era that have managed co avoid being swept away by the tide of progress. The only time that Londoners now see carriage horses is at the State opening of Parliament, when the King and Queen attend in the 160-year-old State coach, drawn by eight beautiful bay horses from the Royal stables. The State coach is preceded on these occasions by five open landaus conveying the chief officials of the Royal household (including the hbl.deis of isuch archais offices as the Gold Stick-in-Waiting and the ‘Silver Stick-in-Waiting). Each of these carriages is drawn by four bay horses, with a postilion mounted on one of the leaders, and two footmen in white knee breeches, white silk hose, goldembroidered coats, and powdered wigs standing on a footboard at the rear of the carriage. In all, there are twentyeight bay horses ! in the procession at the opening of Parliament. It is an impressive, spectacular ceremony from which the motor will never abolish the horse;