Horses
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Horses were for several millennia one of the main transport means for human beings. They are four-legged mammals that can be attached by straps to a carriage, or ridden directly by means of a saddle on their backs, or even barebacked.
Being animal, they have the disadvantage that they tend to tire, get hungry or thirsty, become dirty or obstreperous, and eventually they die.
For many centuries people struggled to find a replacement for these beasts, varying from the humble dog-cart to the bicycle. Then in the 1880's the first practical petrol-driven car was developed in Germany, and was not for nothing gladly described as the "horseless carriage". Within a few decennia the dreadful stench and mess of horses disappeared from city streets around the developed world. Man was freed from the tyranny of these large dim creatures. Only later in the 20th century did a large group of adolescent girls and country gentry, who were almost as thick as the horses themselves, try to persuade the rest of the population that the horse wasn't such a bad thing after all.
The populus was unmoved, except on the day of the Grand National, a popular steeplechase horse race, when they shuffled as a man into betting shops to put their last savings on to a nag which was likely to break its neck jumping over enormous artificial obstacles, while carrying diminutive Irishmen.
They were also unmoved by the argument from the flushed adolescents that claimed that the horse was a noble creature. Horses turned out to be less intelligent than a backward sheep, and this was evident by the fact that they allowed themselves to be used for the carriage of the broad-in-the-beam and the sloping-of-the-forehead for so many generations. Television programmes about wonder horses that could rescue their owners, or who could even talk, were still less convincing. The end lot of the horse was the French butcher's shop or the glue factory.
And no creature could pretend to be clever when they urinate while they eat. Or defecate while walking in a parade. Or dimly step without protest into the faeces of their predecessor who is walking just in front of them.
