COACH DRIVER TO CATTLE KING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9044, 20 March 1908, Page 3

COACH DRIVER TO CATTLE KING.

One of those engrossing romances, racy of the Australian soil, which periodically break in upon the tedium of plodding work-a-day life, is unfolded from the career of Mr Daniel Kingsland, one-time horse-breaker , and driver of Cobb and Co.'s coaches in various parts of Australia, now the owner of fine estates in the Motherland. In the spacious seventies and the hustling eighties, the name of Dan Kingsland was famous throughout New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, as being borne by one to whom the habit of handling and subduing the wildest horse 3 came naturally along the pathway "of every day's march. The last twenty ' years of his life he has spent in the Argentine Republic. In 1389 he became interested in the horse and cattle trade at Buenos Ayres, and ten years later was responsible for more than half the cattle exported from the Republic. A year ago he . retired from the control of freezing works that cost half a million sterling, and are among the largest of their kind in the world. The story of Mr Kingsland's accession to fortune includes none of those dazzling elements of luck which sometimes enter into the careers of men. For several years prior and subsequent to his leaving Australia, he was the target for a more than ordinary share of "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." After many vicissitudes, he finally drifted—advancing beyond middle age, widower with a family of young children—to Buenos Ayres. His stepping-stone proved to be the subjugation of a team of fiery greys belonging to the President of the Republic. Eventually he began in a small way to export horses to England, with indifferent financial success, and afterwards turned bis attention to cattle. Resourcefulness, pluck, and steady application returned a due reward, for within eleven years the business had grown to mammoth proportions, the chartering of forty steamers at one time being a common occurrence. At the time (188y) of the English embargo being placed upon the import of Argentine stock, Mr Kings--1 md's figures represented more than naif the total cattle exports from the Republic. He then turned his attention to refrigerating, and became interested in the South Africa Cold Storage Company, whose works were capable of dealing with 300 bullocks ' and 3000 sheep pur day, and spread over an area of 40 acres. In June last, the concern was taken over by Swift and Co., of Chicago, and preparations are now being made to double the output. It is a simple, but fascinating story, this narrative of the prog-ess of a hard-bitten, lone-handed Australian from coachdriver to cattle king.