STRAY ANIMALS.

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 202, 6 November 1869, Page 4

STRAY ANIMALS.

To the Editor of the Marlborough Exp r ess. Sir, —Have the Town Council any power to put a stop to so many vagrant Horses and Cattle running about ? If they have, it’s high time they did, for they are committing depredations in every direction Not a hedge but they will eat, or fence some of them will leap ; in fact the other Sunday I saw a bull deliberately push himself through the wire fence of Mr. Sinclair’s paddock, and set too with hearty good will on the oats or whatever may be growing there. It’s all very well to say, “pound them.” Not every one has a horse and stock-whip, and any thing less would be useless to the devils, for they are like antelopes. It comes very hard on cottagers at this time of year, to find in the morning half a dozen beasts in his garden destroying the labor of many a moonlight-. night; independent of that, the public at large are sufferers, for it’s perfectly useless making gutters to your roads, or water courses at all, for as soon as a tuft of grass appears on the bank thither will they, it slips, and the drain is stopped. Besides it’s unfair to the purchaser or renter of land to have to compete with a man who gives say five shillings more or less for a calf, or another, and there are some who own five or six cows—the one with the calf or calves turns them out to be fed at the public expense until they are worth as many pounds, costing him nothing. Now there are several ways to obviate the evil. Let the town Council appoint a Town Herdsman to look after loose Horses and Cattle, and charge so much per week ; impounding all not given in charge to him. It pays elsewhere, why not here. At any rate it would equalize things a little, or compel the poundkeeper to send a man out say at least twice a week to impound all loose horses and cattle; Or if the branding act is in force here enforce it so that the owners may be made answerable. I don’t knowif the registration of brands is in force here but it is elsewhere and works admirably for all parties. Those owners of Cattle without land would soon find it convenient to get land and thus again it would pay. I am not a sanguinary character, but as a Dernier resort unless something is done, must advise all who care for their gardens or hedges to plant a few roots of Tutu here and there in their fence, which will soon thin the persecutors. These landless Cattle owners want just as much for their produce as those that spend hundreds in renting or purchasing. It’s monstrous.—Sir, hoping you will excuse the length of this. I am, &c, Veritas.