Now the suppression of the stage-horses upon our principal thoroughfares,
and of the dray-horses in the great commercial towns, may be calculated
to economize a saving of food equivalent to the supply of the above number
of human beings.
It is, perhaps, not superfluous to remark, that the amount of food,
equal to the supply of the said four millions, is not the produce of an
extended agriculture and proportionate outlay, but is just _that part_
of the annual produce of the country, subtracted from the whole, which
is at present required for the mere purpose of _transportation_--i.e. to
feed the animals used for draught,--and is consequently a dead loss as
unproductive capital.
In addition to the evil arising from such a consumption of unproductive
food, is also to be considered the very great loss consequent upon the
heavy capital sunk in _horse_ purchase. Were this viewed, as properly it
ought, as money withheld from other purposes of trade, and which might
be more advantageously invested, our capitalists and men of science
would not oppose the substitution of inanimate for animate power in the
way they have done.
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