Spectacles for Horses.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 161, 17 July 1886, Page 7

Spectacles for Horses.

Says the "Philadelphia News'' :- For many years it was a disputed ques.ion whether or not horeea and'mulea were subject to myopia, or near-sightedness. Authorities on matters pertaining to the different diseases of horses' eyes differ on the question, but within lato years it has become a settled fact among veterinarysurgeons thathorses, likehumans, aro liable to ba short-sighted. The peculiar actions of numerous animals led to an investigation of this affliction, and it was found to exist principally in grey horses and grey mules. Drivers have frequently found that their horses will jog along the street, apparently unalarmed by the objects that usually produce terror in timid hordes, until within a few yards, when they will manifest the greatest alarm ard immediately rear or balk. Investigation of the cause of such conduct has led to the conclu-ion that they were afllicted with short-sightedness, and that their fright was caused by the sudden appearance cf the strange thing within their line of limited vision. Valuable horees have been so atllicted, and no remedy has as yet been discovered. A Philadelphia gentleman, who owns and drives a valuable roadster, was very much annoyed to discover that his aniaial was alllicted with this rather unusual malady. He had plenty of leisure, and he deteimined that he would, more for amusement than for practical use, investigate the subjoct, and endeavour to find some way of making his horse see as well aa any other. He very quickly found that a medical remedy was out of the question, so he obtained several lenses and had a halter like arrangement made for the head, with a regular spectacle frame for over the eyes. He then went into a series of measurements, such as oculists make to find the lens which would remedy the defect. " When I found the right pair of lenses," ho said, "I had the greatest trouble to: keep the horse from smashing things. Ho ' saw too much. His sight was so much improved that he saw objects in the stable which he had never seen before, and when I first kept the spectacles on him regularly, he used to spend most of his time kicking ' at blankets, stable coats, and harness that were near him. Then he ssemed to discover that the spectacles were responsible for the unusual sights. He used to break them off by rubbing his head against the manger or sides of the etall. I then changed the frame for a lighter one, and fixed it on in such a manner that he hardly i felt it, and he soon grew accustomed to the new order of things. Now he calls for his spectacles aa regularly every morning as he does for his breakfast, and he will not allow < anything to be done for him until his ' specs ' are put on. He has grown rather proud oi them, and I have had a pair of regular noeo glasses made for him, with a light chain dangling over one ear, and when he has them on he acts like a regular dandy." "ISO, I never put the glasses on him when 1 drive out," continued the gentleman, in response to an inquiry 5 •• I don't care about being laughed at by the people I meet on the road, and a horse wearing glasses would certainly cau.-e ridicule. I think, though, that eventually horses wearing glasses will be as common a sight as spectacled men, for I am sure that the first man who had the temerity to appear on the streets wearing a pair of glasses was as much laughed at as a horse would be now. Xi 1 had considerable fun when 1 started my experiments with one of the mules that is used at my works He proved that he was near-sighted by his actions on many different occasions. I thought I would try to benefit him by putting the glasses on him. When I first put them on he came near of making a total wreck of the stable. I was adjusting the harness which held them on his head he stood quiet

enough. As soon as I let go my hold of his head he just took a look round to gauge things. He evidently concluded to experiment with them, and, taking eight on a coach dog that was art interested spectator in the proceedings, he swung around and fixed himself in what he thought was u good kicking distance, and then he let go both heels. He had with the glasses misjudged hia distance and miesed, a moat unupual thing with a mule. Such a look of disgust as that mule threw on me I never saw. His ears hung limp, and the drooping upper lip gave him the most woebegone look I ever saw, and he simply sat down on the heels that he thought were useless evermore, and [ could almost swear I saw tears ready to flow from his eyes " Then he got mad and began a promiscuous kicking, and before long there was a good supply of firewood lying in the stable. lie smaehed the glasses and a halfdozen other paiiß that I afterward pub on him, and I could not get him ueed to them. 1 gave him up after a while, and concluded that a mule is 'an onory cuss ' and doesn'c want to be benefited by science."