1904 
3o9 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Hope Farm Notes 
A Horse Trade.—I was trimming rasp¬ 
berries one morning w'hen my neighbor on 
the south came over the stone wall. 
“Did you hear about my horse trade in 
New York?” he asked. 
I hadn’t—but New York horse trades have 
interested me ever since we bought “the 
Bird” and found how thick her wind is. 
I could see the old mare in the orchard 
from where I was working—an object les¬ 
son ever before me. 
“I hope your trade wasn’t as bad as 
mine!” „ , , , , 
“Worse than that!” But I will let him, 
tell his own story, though I cannot give it 
the force which his sense of loss and in¬ 
justice put into it. 
“My horses are working on the new 
reservoir, and I thought if 1 could get 
another team I could do my farm work 
and also get m extra work at the job. I 
saw in my Sunday paper an advertisement 
of a man who offered to “guarantee” his 
horses. That got me, and I went down on 
the strength of it to see wht he had. He 
offered me two big, strong horses for $130. 
Pie trotted them up and down the street, 
and they looked right, but 1 knew how 
many farmers had been cheated in this 
way. He finally drew up a written paper 
guaranteeing that tne horses were sound 
and healthy, and that if they were not 
satisfactory I could return them within 10 
days and have my money back or exchange 
for other horses. In Paterson this is often 
done, and such a guarantee is as good as 
gold. This man talked so well that finally 
H took his guarantee and brought the 
horses home. We were a long time getting 
there, and after a day or two I found that 
one horse nad the heaves so bad that it 
took me over an hour and a quai ter to 
travel little over a mile. The other horse 
was suffering from a fatal kidney disease, 
and could not pull a pound. The dealer 
had both horses filled with drugs, which 
made them presentable in the stable. 
‘‘I still felt safe, for my ‘written guar¬ 
antee’ seemed sound at least. So I hitched 
up one of the horses and started back to 
New York. About 10 miles from home the 
horse dropped dead on the road. He had 
sense enough to die rather than go back 
to what was ahead of him in New York. 
I took the bridle and went on to the city. 
1 caught the deaier sunning himself in 
front of the stable on the lookout for more 
suckers. I told him about the horse. 
“ ‘Nothin’ doin’,’ says he! 
“But how about your written guarantee ! 
“ ‘Back to the woods, farmer! I’m sell- 
in’ horses, I ain’t receivin’ ’em.’ 
“That was all I could get out of him. 
“Back to the woods! 
“I tried to make him fight, for I had 
that in my pocket that would have blown 
him up, and the fight would have got the 
public into it and given me a chance to 
get justice. There was no fight in him. 
Pie knew better. All he could say was. 
“ ‘Back to the woods, farmer!’ 
“I then went to a jiolice station, lhey 
nut me off. but I hung around until I wore 
them out and they brought the case into 
a police court I started to tell my story 
to the magistrate, but after a few words 
he waved me away, with: 
“ ‘Civil action! Get out! Call the next 
case!’ 
“Another way of saying ‘Back to the 
woods!’ 
"In the meantime I had learned all about 
the way these rascals operate. There are 
three of them together. They buy up old 
plugs that are fatally diseased and doctor 
them with arsenic and other drugs. The 
horses are usually big enough, and when a 
farmer comes in they can use a halter or 
bridle with pins in it, which will prick a 
flicker of life into a corpse. • It: ’is the 
written guarantee that does the business. 
These rogues never expect to take a horse 
back. A ‘watcher’ stands out in front and 
when he sees a horse returning the man 
who sold him hides and the others swear 
that they do not know him—that he only 
hired two stalls to sell the horses and has 
now cleared out. They will even curse at 
him and profess to be indignant that he 
has given their stable a bad name, when 
all the while they are in league with him! 
They have no property, and even if you 
got judgment against 'them you nSver 
could collect it. 
“I have heard so much about District 
Attorney Jerome and the way he handles 
frauds that I went down to his office to 
state my case. While they were a little 
more polite about it, the information was 
about the same as ‘Back to the woods! 
Nothin’ doin’!’ 
“1 hung on until finally one of the law¬ 
yers there issued a subpoena for the dealer. 
Pretty soon word came back that this 
rascal could not be found. Of course he 
got word of the subpoena and hid himself. 
They thought that would get rid of me, 
but I had now been down there nearly a 
week, and I was desperate. 
“ ‘Give me the subpoena,’ says I, ‘and I 
will serve it on him!’ 
“They laughed at me, but finally gave 
me the paper. I camped on that rascals 
train all day. and finally, late at night, I 
caught him, with another man, sneaking 
along in the dark by a gas house. I hoped 
then he would show light, but there was 
no fight in him—nothing but fraud so 1 
stuck the subpoena in his pocket and thus 
served it. The next morning I was down 
to the Attorney’s office early. When the 
time came in walked, not the rascal him¬ 
self but a slick-looking lawyer or poli¬ 
tician, who said his friend was sick and 
could not come! Sick! When I saw him a 
few hours before healthier than all the 
horses he ever guaranteed! The Attorney s 
assistant stormed around a little for ef¬ 
fect, but finally the politician beckoned 
him over to the corner and whispered to 
him for a few minutes. That settled It for 
me. It was the same old story—told in 
different words: 
“ ‘Back to the words, farmer! Nothin’ 
doin’! You will have to take your money’s 
worth in education! You to the country. 
Get wise!’ 
"They wouldn’t insist, that the horse 
dealer obey the subpoena, and they would 
do nothing further but say ‘civil action.’ 
though they knew that a farmer would 
have no chance in the New York courts. 
My horses cost me $130. I spent nearly $30 
while in New York, and l linajly traded 
the horse with the heaves, after telling all 
about him, giving $35 boot; so that my 
one horse, worth perhaps $40, cost me $19o. 
I have since learned that the horse with 
the heaves has died! 
“ ‘Back to the woods! Ge,t wise!’ ” 
What About It?—I give this story as he 
told it. There are other farmers who will 
do well to “get wise” and keep away 
from New York on a horse trade. Yet 1 
am bound to say that there are horse 
dealers in the city who are as honest as 
a horse will permit a man to be. We 
bought Frank in New York and got a 
great bargain, but the dealer would not 
guarantee him. 1 bought the Bird “as she 
stands”—the dealer would not guarantee 
her. The fact that the guarantee of some 
men really has manhood back of it is the 
most dangerous thing connected with hoise 
dealing. Men come to have a wrong idea 
of what a “guarantee” is. We believe m 
law and order, and when people <lo con¬ 
siderable howling about what they do to 
enforce laws we place nioj-e value on the 
mere paper than we ought to. I he P a Pei 
itself amounts to little—it is the man Wh. 
stands behind it that gives it J9 per cent 
Biit the law will compel the man to roc- 
oS hl»“»er! Will ill My 
thought so, but 1 regret to say that n^ 
now knows that the law itself is as dead 
a door nail unless the man behind it 
sees fit to put life into it. You try your 
luck at riding law m a run for justice m 
this great city—a poor man without P ul! - 
money or friends-and see if you get much 
bC “Back to the woods! Nothin’ doin’!” 
T nm sorrv to stiy this, for if dny Aincr 
icon would‘like to‘take a hopeful view of 
the nublic chances of the poor and friend 
less I am the man, for I have been as poor 
as anybody in my time. I wrote the W 
triet Attorney about this matter and put 
the case before him. One of his assistants 
replied just as my neighbor said he would 
while he used a number of other woids 
his meaning was very cvaU-nt 
"Back to the woods! Nothin doin . 
I went back to the woods and cut as good 
a load of words as I could wnte, and let 
him have them. When this eorreisponden e 
is ended I will tell about lL I whh 
could make those lawyers un , d ® r ^ n h ^ha*: 
it means to a poor farmer to lose money 
in this way; how it means toil and plncn 
ing and trouble for all the members of the 
familv Kvery cent must be bathed m 
sweat if not in blood, before it is re P lace , d - 
This is not all, for while a man may y 
hard work and self-denial earn and sav 
the money once more, the sense of mjus- 
tice and wrong cannot be wiped out. When 
those "who are paid to protect him from 
fraud and wrong decline to do it, but 
spend their time hunting other rogues, you 
cannot blame a poor man for feeling that 
justice is tor the strong and that such as 
he must get on as best he can. When a 
man begins to feel that society will not 
take care of him, except as he compels 
it to do so, that man goes backward in 
civilization toward the time when men 
fought for their rights and held them by 
main force, if at all. How cani you expect 
such a man to feel as he should toward 
mankind? Go and tell him that the theory 
of a republic is for each man to give up 
a small share of his rights and thus make 
a big fund for protection and happiness 
for all. and he will tell you that he h.u> 
given a big share of his rights and re¬ 
ceived only a crumb of protection. So¬ 
ciety owes him his slice and he is out after 
i don’t want to be misunderstood in this. 
When a man gets the hot end of a horse 
trade through his own smartness or in an 
effort to beat somebody else, he should not 
blow his fingers in public. He took ms 
chances and lost. It is not a case even tor 
“civil action.” When, however, a man buys 
on a “guarantee,” proves the fraud clearly 
and is denied satisfaction, he is entitled 
to the stoutest help the authorities can give 
him. I’ll guarantee that if a case of this 
sort were worked in our county we would 
get the money back or put the rascal be¬ 
hind the bars! 
If there is. any moral in such a story it 
is to keep away from New York dealers 
on a horse trade; keep away from the city 
courts, accept no stranger’s “guarantee” 
as worth a cent, and thank the Lord that 
you live in the country, whare you are 
already “back to the woods, ’ and where a 
poor man has about the only chance left 
him on the face of the earth. 
I have spent so much time over this horse 
story that I must lay over a dozen things 
I had in mind. The frost is slowly crawl¬ 
ing out of the ground. Phi’ip s back from 
Norway to tell us what a mild Winter they 
had over thers. We thought Norway was 
close to the North Pole, but it would seem 
that New Jersey is closer when it comes 
11 - w w r- 
to weather. 
E.MPIKE, 
DRILLS 
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