MINOR TRAGEDY OF WAR

Otaki Mail, Volume 26, 19 April 1919, Page 4

MINOR TRAGEDY OF WAR

j• a ’ | WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER-OF 1 HORSES. | Oho of the minor tragedies of war is ' described in a letter received by an Auckland resident from a New Zealand soldier in Palestine. The writer says: —“I -was sent out with a party with 300 poor old horses, who, being unfit for further service, had to be destroyed, 300 having been shot the previous day. ■ It s.eemed awfully sad to think that the poor old faithful cratures, , after suffering from thirst, hunger, anti fatigue, and carrying heavy loads for r hundreds of miles, should have to end their days by being shot down by- the very people they had so faithfully served. Thank God, they had not the intelligence to realise what seemed like man’s ingratitude! Some of the poor old beggars had landed hero -with tho Main Body, and if (here is a Heaven for animals they have earned their peace in it! After all, it was the most • merciful end, for it is far "better for them to be dead than to fall into tho hands of some of these people, either here or in Egypt, who are the cruellest people I have ever seen with animals. Better dead than to lead a life of misery at the hands of some ghar'ry i driver in Cairo, to bo thrashed, starved : and worked to death. But how nice it vTould have been to 'have been able to turn them all, out on some boundless prairie to live out tho rest of their lives in peace and comfort, when one ! could say, with perfect/ truth, ‘YVell done, thou good and faithful servants.’ i Of course, one has to harden one’s »heart to these sort of things in warfare, • but: I can tell you it made sonic of us 1 rather miserable for some, time.”