Wednesday, 07 January 2009
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September 2008 • VOLUME 37 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
The continuing story of the historical impact horses were on our civilization 100 years ago.
CHAPTER X
THE COAL HORSE On the average every Londoner burns a quarter of a pound of coal an hour. This may not seem to be much, and at first sight one would think that the various societies for smoke-abatement and so-called fog abolition had very poor grounds for their existence; but a quarter of a pound of coal an hour means six pounds of coal a day, and that means a ton of coal a year; so that London annually burns five million tons. If we add these five millions to the close upon three millions used by the gas companies, we get the close upon eight millions which are now entering the London area during the year by land or water. There are not many horses used in shifting the gas coal, but nearly all the five millions used outside the gas manufacture is moved from wharf and railway station by hiring horse-power. The number of horses employed in this work is great, though not so great as might perhaps be imagined. The coal horse - that is the first-class coal-merchant's horse, such as works the vans of Herbert Clarke, for instance - moves about thirty tons a week, or 1,500 tons in the course of the year. If all the horses were like these, and the coal had to be moved but once, as is generally the case, it would require over 3,000 horses in the London coal trade. As a matter of fact, there are about five thousand more, but these run down to a very decided fag end of greengrocers' drudges and cab-yard screws, which we can conveniently eliminate. There are 300 horses working out of the Great Northern King's Cross depot alone; the Midland and North Western have almost as many, and all the railway coal stations are tended by a numerous herd of distributors, so that we shall be well within the mark in allotting 1,500 fairly good horses to the leading London coal merchants. The average of the inner ring of the trade is about a hundred horses each. This may not seem much, but a hundred horses at 55l. apiece means 5,500l., a nice little capital to have to invest in horseflesh alone. The better-class coal horse is of the heavy dray horse type, and comes to London when he is five years old, either from the fair or direct from the farm. He costs from 50l. to 70l., and he averages from three to eight years of hard work. When he begins to fail he is sold to what we may call the second-class merchants for an average of 20l.; or he may be worked on, and he very often is, until he finds his way to the repository, and changes hands at 10l., to be put to miscellaneous labour. It is the same story with these horses as with all the rest. Some will only last a couple of years, some will go on for ten or twelve, and there is one horse at least in the London carts who in his time has drawn 18,000 tons of coal, and looks fit to draw quite half as many more. The coal horse breakfasts at four in the morning and goes out to work at six, taking with him a nose-bag and a small sack of bait, which is his provender for the day. He does not return to the stables until his day's work is done, which may end at seven o'clock or may last out till
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