Page:Motors and motor-driving (1902).djvu/401

Rh should be stood in a paddock and the motor vehicle driven round it in gradually decreasing circles. The driver of the motor should then talk soothingly to the horse, and the groom should also encourage it as much as possible. The horse will follow with his eyes the movements of the car, and, as a rule, in a little while will allow it to be driven close by without any further signs of fear. The horse should then be harnessed and taken out on the road, the motor-car driven out to meet it, and sent a number of times past it until the animal takes little or no notice. Such treatment as this will be found to succeed very quickly with the ordinary horse which has been trained for road traffic; but special measures might be necessary in the case of some horses which cannot be cured of shying on passing a piece of newspaper, a drain ventilator, or any unusual object.

As regards the relationship between motor-owners and horse-owners, I fully endorse the admirable letter of Sir Henry Thompson which appeared in the 'Times' in 1901, as also the remarks made by Mr. Walter Long, President of the Local Government Board, as follows:—

It may not be out of place for me here to make a few remarks re the rule of the road. Everyone knows that on vehicles meeting the law is, Keep to the Left. Now Great Britain and Ireland are the only countries in which, so far as I am aware, this is the rule. In France, Germany, America, &c., vehicles meeting keep to the right, and until I took to driving an automobile I never gave the matter a thought, but now the reason is obvious. Take, for instance, a man leading a stallion or other horse on the public highway. The man in charge of the beast naturally leads the horse on his right-hand side. A