Today in Technology History

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January 10

We shouldn't forget, as we zip around in our cars, that not long ago people routinely depended on animal power for transportation. The following editorial was published in the Washington Post exactly one century ago, on January 10, 1903 -- during the period of transition from horses to cars.

Now that the season of slop and slip is nearly on us, The Post would repeat its admonition to the kind-hearted people of Washington [D.C.] to take an active interest in the welfare of the horses. Private owners of horseflesh may be trusted to do this from motives of self-interest, if none other. But in spite of the automobile fad, there are still a great many [horse-drawn] cabs in this city and a few lines of public conveyances which continue to use motors of brute muscle and bone and blood, and it is the patrons of these vehicles who are the most apt, probably through thoughtlessness, to make the horses' lot a hard one. ...

If you drive yourself, be particularly patient with your horse these days. It does not slip and slide and shiver because it likes to; it does not beat the asphalt with its hoofs, but fails to start its load, because it wishes to annoy you. On the contrary, it tries hard to accomplish impossibilities because you urge it. Do not spend all your strength and most of your objurgatory vocabulary on urging from the rear. Step up in front now and then, when things are at their worst, and encourage the poor creature with a kind word and a pat on the neck. Remember that horses, like men, often lose nerve as the result of a hapless struggle, and that, like men again, they get a great deal more fresh courage out of a pleasant but stimulating voice than from the loudest bray and the most ingenious combination of expletives within the scope of human ingenuity.

 

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