OCR Text |
Show Reserve Horses for War. In Switzerland the state is part owner of horses used by reserves. It purchases pur-chases a remount of Zi years old, and the soldier pays half the cost of the horse to the government, together with the difference between its cost and the price that the horse fetches at auction for all horses are sold by auction to the men. After every year of training the government gov-ernment refunds one-tenth of the original orig-inal half cost to the men, and at the end of ten years the horse becomes the absolute property of the soldier. In this manner the soldier is not only always al-ways well mounted but as he keeps his horse with him at his home his mobilization mobi-lization problem is of the simplest nature. na-ture. The average price of these Swiss troop horses is about 45 sterling, says Baily's Magazine, and as most of these horses are. imported from Ireland and north Germany their price is considerably consider-ably higher than it Avould be in this country. Thus the state secures the services of a horse for an annual outlay out-lay of about 4 10s; but there are certain cer-tain other expenses which must be included in-cluded in this estimate, such as the cost of the establishment for remount depots, etc., which raises the total cost of horses for the Swiss government to about S 12s a year. |