Herds and Flocks and Horses. 73 



THE ARMY HORSE. 



IT is very nice to hear of peace conferences, international dis- 

 armament, the general existence of brotherly love and no 

 disagreements that would lead to warfare; it is splendid, 

 beautiful, ideal, but utterly impracticable and impossible as 

 man exists today. There is too much territory on the face of 

 this beautiful world undiscovered, uncivilized, uncultivated, 

 undeveloped, rich beyond computation, and so valuable as 

 needs must make it the bone of contention between the great 

 powers whether they own it today or whether they do not. 

 Man is not yet far enough removed from his savage fighting an- 

 cestors to sit quietly down and listen to the voice of the idealist 

 as long as there are rich earthly prizes to be won, or interna- 

 tional arguments to be settled. 



Arbitration will go a certain distance in the apparently 

 amicable settlement of comparatively small matters ; but power, 

 might, and shot and shell, will constitute the final court of 

 appeal when nations disagree; and so it will go on until such 

 an advanced, such a high, and such an enlightened education, 

 shall have made the peoples of the earth so fair, so friendly, 

 and so pure of mind, as to render wars unnecessary. This, 

 however, can only come with the slow but sure improvement 

 and refining influence of evolution, and in a day of which the 

 most enlightened, learned, and far seeing, can but imagine. 



The present generation will see wars and bloodshed such as 

 in all probability have never yet been chronicled, and historians 

 will write of future divisions of the earth, as geographers will 

 draw maps that will apportion the land to others. Kingdoms 

 will disappear, and republics rise and fall. The day of peace 

 is not yet, but the hour of war is at hand. 



Of all the sinews of war, none are more necessary than 

 horses, and never in the history of the world have the great 

 military nations of the earth maintained such enormous stand- 

 ing armies as they are doing today; never in their history 



