196 STRAY- AW AYS 



Over here we scarcely know what the news is, or will 

 be. During this week people have asked each other, 

 at Leopardstown, at the Show, at the Bloodstock 

 Sales, at Phoenix Park Races, how things will be 

 next year, when the Royal Dublin Society opens 

 the doors of its forty-sixth Horse Show, and there 

 has been no satisfactory answer. That incorrigible 

 Unionist, the Horse, alone remains where he was, and 

 will remain, like charity, the bond of peace. The 

 army of foals now in the fields are pushing on towards 

 their vocations ; the men or women who watch over 

 each have their hearts in his future, and that future 

 is pure of politics. The world wants him more than 

 ever now; Ulster and the South are producing him 

 with an equal intentness in response to the great 

 desire of other countries for him ; Ireland herself will 

 want him when the latest horse-drawn farming 

 machinery is placed by co-operation within the reach 

 of small farmers as well as large. He is knitting 

 Ireland together; the political situation, heavy and 

 black as it is, opens to let him through. Wien the 

 wondrously blended crowd moves in the enclosured 

 area of the Horse Show, and the seldom seen Union 

 Jack lounges there on its staff, and the National 

 Anthem makes there its resounding statement of 

 faith, the Horse might laugh in his heart at his power 

 to place such matters in a secondary position. But, 

 unlike the dog, the Horse seldom laughs. 



Martin Ross. 



September 1913. 



