AN OLD-TIME SPORTSMAN.
To the Editor of OUTING:
DEAR SIR,—In the January number of OUTING there is among the Answers to Correspondents a point which I should like to see developed in your valuable magazine. It is in reference to the new Forest ponies, about which some questions had been asked by “Breeder.” The words to which I specially refer are, “they are handy and useful.” In proportion to their inches, ponies can accomplish vastly more work than full-sized horses. In fact, this remark applies equally well to donkeys. Why is it that we see no donkeys and scarcely any ponies put to do useful work in America? In England the costermonger’s “moke” has become proverbial, and it is an inspiriting sight to see a well-tended donkey trotting cheerily along, with a heavy load behind him of which he makes most marvelously light. And, again, in London every small shop-keeper has one ambition at least, and that is to own a fast-trotting pony, and a smart cart, in which to take the “missus” for her Sunday outing. The same pony pays very amply for food and lodging by taking goods to customers’ houses during the week. How different is it in New York! Here we have broken-down old car-horses, with very palpable ribs, dejectedly sauntering wearily along in the shafts of the street vendor’s wagon, and the smart pony and the patient “moke” are unknown.
Can not and will not OUTING do something towards inaugurating a movement to popularize the smaller and more useful breed? Yours truly,
A LOVER OF ANIMALS.
To the Editor of OUTING:
DEAR SIR,—I have read with great pleasure Mr. Hallowell’s article on Harvard Athletics, and look forward to the account of Yale pastimes, which I understand are to be described in the February number. I am not a graduate of either institution, but I like to read about them and the other colleges and learn of their doings in athletics, and the method OUTING has adopted of presenting from time to time an account of some college athletic organization is to be highly commended. We all know the position athletics nowadays hold in the collegian’s life, and the many objections which the uninformed raise to an indulgence in sport on the part of students. OUTING is doing a noble work in showing that good results from them, not harm.
A WESTERNER.
