ARMY OF HORSES

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 445, 28 May 1937, Page 6

ARMY OF HORSES

. 40,000 IN LONDON Fight For Existence London, May 2. The horse has been heartened in its fight to keep a foothold in the streets of London. The Minister of Transport, frowning at traffic delays, may ban certain streets to the horse, but a high police official has spoken in its favour. Major G. de Chair, deputy assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, let it be known at the London Van Horse Society’s parade that the van horse is all-important. A prosperous Eng; land and a prosperous . agriculture were, in his opinion, linked together. And for a prosperous agriculture light horse breeding and fodder production were essential.

If that is true, London does more for agriculture than any other city in the Kingdom. Londoners usually think of the horse as an animal just about to disappear from their streets. Not many of them realise that there are over 39,600 horses left in London. Even Glasgow, second largest city, has only some 5700. Such figures, as the secretary of the National Horse Association explained are approximate. Nobody has ever counted all the horses in London, all the inhabitants of little stables tucked away here and there. 19.000 Van Horses. Of London’s horses, 13,000 odd are ponies and cobs, while nearly 19,000 are van horses, light, medium or heavy—many more than the number of horses and mules together on the strength of the British Army. There are several ways of discovering how and where the London horse is surviving best in the struggle against motor transport. Blackwall Tunnel tells a tale of dwindling horse usage since the war. In 1915, on a selected day, 1498 horse-vehicles passed through the tunnel. The number for a selected day in 1935 was only 117. In other words, horse vehicles declined, in those 20 years, from 76.2 per cent of the traffic passing through the tunnel to being 1.5 per cent. In The City. Horses have been driven east in London. Stand on Richmond Bridge and you will see some 65 horse-drawn vehicles pass during the day. At Hammersmith Bridge the number will have risen to nearly 100, and in Kensington High Street to nearly 200. Marble Arch can show some 500 horse vehicles a day, as compared -with Hyde Park Corner’s 800. In the city the horse jumps to four figures. Along High Holborn 1374 passed on the day when the last, census was taken, and 2314 crossed Ludgate Circus. . •

But the Tower Hill is the greatest stamping ground of the horse in London. There over 4000 draw their loads daily, and nearly 3000 cross the Tower Bridge. They are horses in all variety of service—railways, laundries, breweries, dairies, coal merchants, haulage contractors. The railway companies are most loyal to the horse, owning between them over 13,000, though not in London alone. For door-to-door delivery the horse beats the motor lorry. The Minister of Transport has been told that it he bans horses from the London streets the large dairy companies, one of whom owns 2250 ponies, will not take

to motor delivery. They will replace the ponies with hand-carts, because it is uneconomic to stop and start a car up and down dozens of neighbouring streets.