The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1884-03-14
A Talk About Mules.
ANIMALS DIFFERING ENTIRELY FROM THE
ORDINARY CONCEPTION OF THE QUAD
RUPED.

ANIMALS DIFFERING ENTIRELY FROM THE
ORDINARY CONCEPTION OF THE QUAD
RUPED.
II is only among some of the Latin
races, as in Spain and Portugal and in
the East, that the mule and his sire, the
ass, are appreciated at their true value.
With the nations of Germatic descent,
and more particularly the Anglo Saxon,
perjudice, as deeply rooted as il is i'll
founded, prevents that familiar affec-
tionate association with the ass and the
mule which does so much to develop
the finest instincts, aud humanize, as il
were, the horse and the dog. With us
horses are bred for pleasure IA well as
profit There is some sentiment n the
thing, and one rarely parts with fine
colt, at whatever price, without more
OF less regret.
There was time, however, a few
centuries since, when even IN Engllnd
the mule was the peer of his arlstocra-
tic hall brother, the horse when, clad
In magnificent housings, he proudly
bore upon his back the abbots, the bish-
ops, and the princes of the all powerful
Roman church, nor would this have
been the case had he not been deemed
by the Injurious aud self indulgent pre-.
lates Of thai day as far superior to
the horse tor the purposes of tine sad
die
Even as late as 1880 the mule was
held to be an Indispensable part of the
appendage of the Bourbon dynasty of
France, aud whenever the court of
Charles X. moved from the palace of
the Tulleries to Complegne or Fon.
tainebleau IL was in Coaches drawn at
gallop of ten miles ar hour by su-
perb teams of Spanish mules, and such
mules Near l6 hands high, matched
to hair, glossy black in color, "mealy
mouthed,' with legs and eyes like an
telops, and showing in spirit action
and endurance the generous Barb blood
of their maternal ancestry.
But to see the mule at his best we
should go to the sunny shores of the
Mediterrenean-to Spain and Portugal.
The Arabian denomination of 800
years on that great peninsula filled it
with horses of Arabian and Barb blood,
and this blood, to which we attribute
the best qualities of the modern race
horse, and-para1oxica as it may
seem--the sweet temper, the broad
forehead, the expressive eye, and beau
tiful ear of the massive Percheron
flows, and freely, too, in the veins of
the Spanish mule, and imparts to him
an appearance as superior to American
mules bred for the drudgery of our
Southern plantations as is that of the
kings OF the turf to the coarsest Cones
toga.
Whoever has had the good fortune
to have seen the high strung aud high
ly bred mules harnessed up to the trav-
cling equipages of the Spanish king
dashing through the Puertadel Sol at a
ten mile gait or has encountered the
interminable professions of gayly cap
arisoned mules, bearing the names of
all the saints in the calendar, threading
with unerring feet the dangerous de-
files of the Pyrenees and the Sierra
Mcrena, to the sound of innumerable
linking bells, will cease at once and
forever to object to the mule on the
score of his appearance and whoever
has seen the large, dark eyed, brown,
dirty, ragged, but beautiful children of
Audalusia sambollng as fearlessly and
with as much impunity under the heels
of the mules with which they were
brought up as do the children in the
tents of the Arab among the mares
will be compelled to admit that with
the same kind treatment the mule, too.
develop traits as hear akin to humanity
as the dog and the horse.
We are inclined to believe that well
bred mules possess undeveloped quail
tiles for both quick draught and the
saddle, for which the general public is
not inclined to give them credit, and
we are convinced from actual observa-
tion that for light quick draught over
long distances and continuous from day
to day, and for saddle gaits, mules out
of thoroughbred mares by the best
Maltese jacks are fully equal and per-
haps superior to our average light
draught and saddle horses.
We remember a pair of mules, bred
by one of tie Shelbys, in Kentucky,
that drew carriage containing FIVE
heavy men forty miles over an ordi-
nary road in FIVE hours without turning
a hair or crack of the whip, and re-
turned the next day with equal ease
and in the same time
In 1886 we saw on Red river, La,
500 paid for saddle mules that could
pace at the rate of ten miles an hour
for hours together.
We have friend in Rappahannock,
Va, Tom Hughes, a regular son of
Anack In size, six feet five in his stock
ings, big In proportion and tipping the
beam at over 200 pounds, who for sew
eral seasons rode in the first fight to
hounds hunting country that was
nearly all mountain on a mule that
never made misstep or refused leap
over fence or WALL Correspondent to
Turf Field and Farmer.