The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-05-06

long distances over the plains without for
age be cannot be beaten unless by the In
dian pony. A good saddie-muie some
times makes sixty or seventy-five miles a
day without seeming 10 De much fatigued;
and a trustworthy frontiersman assures
me that he has known one TO make one
| hundred miles between daylight and dark.
But the saddle-mule is not always relia-
| bic. If he takes it into his head to plant
himself just where he is, he is very diff
cult to transplant. If he sues for a divorce,
/ he usually contrives to get the law of
gravity on his side.
The most eminent physical qualities
of the mule are surefootedness, great
| strength, and remarkable toughness and
vigOr. Aristotle tells us that the age
reached by the mule is greater than that
of the horse or ass. For a mule" he
says, ''has been known TO live eighty
years, as was the case with mule at
Athens when the temple was building.
This mule, though exempt from servi-
tude, on account of his age, yet being
yOked to a car used to assist in drawing
it so that it was decreed that no one
should drive him away when he approach
ed any heap of cOrn.'
The mule is.eertainly hard animal to
kill, especially if he makes up his mind
that he will not die. On the mountain
side, burdened with a heavy pack, his foot
hold is as firm and sure as the earth on
which it rests but when the earth gives
way. as it sometimes does, pack and mule
90 rolling over and over down the steep
hill or precipice; the animal may be kill
ed, apparently, two or three times before
he gets TO the bottom. but he has general
ly lives enough left to secure him a good
old age and natural death. l have seen
a wheel mule fall and become buried un-
der a heavily loaded wagon so completely
that not hint of the animal was visible.
Yet when the wagon and load were re-
moved, the mule got up and grazed as
though nothing had happened, and SEEM
ed to be the only party there that was not
surprised. did hear of one mule in the
West which died from violence. He fell
into quartz mill and was stamped to a
jelly; then passed into the furnace and
was roasted to a white heat, which made
him perspire freely. On coming out of
the furnace foolish man declared he was
dead. But it is said that when curious
skeptic pounded up some of the furnace
quartz with a pestle, shortly after, the
bray of the mule in the mortar was dis
tinctly heard.
The mule is not the stupid animal he is
represented to be. His powers OF Obser-
walton and memory are sometimes won
derful. Old teamsters say that mule al
ways knows a man who has fed him once.
Take train of two hundred and eighty
army wagons all alike, and when it gets
into camp let the train be parked. and the
mules Embarrassed and driven off togeth-
er mile or two away from the train.
When it is time to give them their corn, if
the animals are herded back to the train,
with a strange instinct every mule will
90 right TO his own wagon. L have heard
old teamsters say that a good mule is
great deal more teachable than a horse,
more knowing, and more affectionate.
But | know no animal whose moral edu-
cation is so much neglected. He is a vic
tim of his associates. When thoroughly
corrupted there is no wickedness to which
he is not equal. His hypocrisy then
greatly helps him to succeed. have seen
him when he looked the perfect picture of
meekness and humility; when it seemed
that even Moses himself must defer to him
in these crOwning virtues. Yet if Moses
or any other patriarch had ventured to
approach him without tribute of corn,
the mule would have kicked him into the
renOtest antiquity. | have seen him de-
ceive a wagon master himself, pretending
that he could not go step farther, but
the moment he was released from harness,
bounding off as fresh and lively as a
colt.
The depraved mule rejeices in his heart
if he en- make some one miserable. 1t is
a trait for which in the West they have a
specific term. They call it ''pure cussed-
ness" When a mule devOtes his whole
life to illustrating this idea, he finds thou
sand opportunities and achieves remark
able success. 1t is this instinct which
prompts him to encourage the attentions
of his driver for a year or two, just for the
sake of getting good chance to kick his
brains out. 1t is this which leads him to
stand still when other people would be
better pleased if he would go. 1t is this
which often decides him, when he really
does start, to send his rider on ahead of
him. Perhaps. too, it is this spirit that
gives the mule his strange idea of justice,
which seems 10 be to visit upon others the
atliictionS he suffers himself. Thus it is
said thatifa bad lot of mules are in line,
and you kick one of them violently, instead
of retaliating on the one who kicked him
he simply kicks the mule behind him.
The second mule passes the kick to the
third. he to the fourth, and so on, till the
primary vengeance had gone the whole
length of the line. leaving the last mule
miuStified. Perhaps it is only an nillustra-
ton ofthe principle that misery loves com
pany, since by this device the mule first
kicked secures the sympathy of the whole
line.
The mule has always been credited with
a great deal of freedom of the will. This
it must be that makes him dislike his rope
and picket-pin. If he can break the rope
or pull up the pin, he finds new Oppor-
tunity. Then, not until he has defraudes
some less fortunate niue out of his grass,
or broken a rivals jaw, or pulled down
two or three tents with his picket-pin,
does he go TO bed happy.
The only personal objection have to
mule is his neglect of camp courtesies, es-
pecially his passion for pulling down
tents. He has a strange instinct, when
self-freed. to consider that direction most
convenient for him which is most incon-
venient for every body else. On the eXpe-
dition our head-quarter tents were always
ranged i'm a line. with space, when camp
was small, only large enough for a man TO
pass between them. Nearly every mule
that pulled up his picket-pin in our vicin-
itv, though he might have hundred miles
of free, unobstructed prairie on the other
side, determined to pass between these
tents, dragging his long lariat. and pin
after him. No matter if the pin caught in
one of our guy-rOpes or in corner of the
tent. He forgot the things that were be-
hind and pressed forward to those that
were before, leaving us TO repair dam
ges. Some times two mules tied TO one
rope would explore together. When this
was the case both mules always tried to
see which could get through the tent-row
/ first.
! Sometimes the wanderer takes it into his
head that he can sing. So long rs he keeps
| this idea to himself nobody can complain.
| But a mule who has such a cOnceit is sure
| to publishit. One who has never heard a
mule solo can form no idea of the rare
cacophony it involves. No musical gamut
can score it; no voice can initiate it. Only
a mule can describeit. Its one ofthe gross
est outrages on the public peace ever devils
ed. Happy for the hearer if the bray be con-
fined to one mule; but when two or three
hundred happen to meet together and some
base prompter among them says, 'Breth
ren, let us bray" the antipnonal response
which is never refused, is perfectly over
L i.