PIT PONIES
[To the Editor of the SPEcTATon.1 Sm,—I should be obliged if you would allow me to correct the wrong impression which may be created by the Hon,.
Juliet Gardner's incomplete quotation . from my paper, Miss Gardner quotes ; —" financial stringency rendered it impossible to maintain sufficient number of ponies equal to all demands."
I have before me a copy of the paper, from which I quote the following :—
" To provide for normal replacements a reserve of not less than 5 per cent. of the working animals should be maintained. . . . It is recognized that, under the erratic conditions which have prevailed in the coal trade during recent years, financial stringency has often rendered it impossible to maintain a reserve equal to all demands which may be made upon it. The same uncertain conditions have, at times, made it necessary to purchase largo numbers of animals at short notice."
It will be clear that the full quotation refers only to reserve animals, maintained on the surface, and it is untrue to construe it to mean that financial stringency made it fin. possible to maintain a sufficient number of working ponies in the pits. The erratic conditions of trade sometimes caused the reserve to represent considerably more than the suggested figure, 5 per cent., because certain collieries were closed. At other times the re-opening of these collieries produced a demand which the reserve was unable to meet from stock, hence the need to purchase numbers of new ponies at short notice.
The expression "that conditions had, of late, somewhat improved" does not occur in the paper, while the full quotation relating to overwork is as follows : "Persistent overworking of ponies is one of the worst forms of cruelty, and incidentally a wasteful procedure."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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