The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1884-03-22
Those Interesting Animals the
Mules.

FROM the 1uIJ, Ffetd and Farm.
1t 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 Germanic descent, and more par
ticularly the Anglo-Saxon, prejudice,
as deeply rooted as it is i'll founded,
prevents that familiar afectionate asso-
citation with the ass and the mule which
does so much to develop the finest in
stincts, and humanize as it we're, the
horse and the dog. With us the horse
are bred for pleasure as well as for prof
it. There issome sentiment in the thing,
and one rarely parts with fine colt, at
whatever price, without more or less
regret.
There was a time, however, a few
centuries since, when even in England
the mule was the peer ofhis aristocratic
half brother the horse; when, clad in
magnificent housings, he proudly bore
upon his back the abbots, the bishops,
and the princes of the all-powerful
Roman Church, nor would this have
been the case had he not been deemed
by the luxurious and self-indulgent pre-
lates of that day as far superior to the
hheIde hheeIdde tS fer BE- Dth a1 tbet sfaqe the
appendage of the Bourbon dynasty of
France, and whenever the court of
Charles x. moved from the palace of
the Tuileries to Compiegne or Fontrine-
bleau it was in coaches drawn at gal
lop of ten miles an hour by superb teams
ofSpanish mules, and such mules Near
16 hands high, match to hair, glossy
black in color, ''mealy mouthed,"
with legs and eyes like antelopes, and
showing in spirit, action, and endur-
ance 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
Mediterranean-to Spain and Portu-
gal. The Arabian domination of 800
years on that great peninsula filled 1t
with horses of Arabian and Barb blood,
and this blood, to which we attribute
the best qualities of the modern race
horse, and-paradoxical as it may seem
the sweet temper, the broad forehead,
the expressive eye, and beautiful 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 Americn mules bred for
the drudger of our Southern plantations
as is that of the kings of turf to the
coarsest Conestogo.
Whoever has had the good fortune to
have seen the high-strung and highly
bred mules harnessed to the travelling
equipages of the Spanish King dashing
through the Puertadel-Sol at a ten-mile
gait or have encountered the intermina-
Bile professions of gay caparisoned
mules, bearing the name of all the saints
in the calendar, treading with unerring
feet the dangerous defles of the Pyre-
nees and the Sierra Morena, to the
sound of innumerable tinkling bells,
will cease at once and forever to object
to the mule on the score of his appear
ance; and whoever have seen the large,
dark-eyed, brown, dirty, ragged, but
beautiful children of fAndalusia gambol-
ling as fearlessly and with as much i'm
punity 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, will develop traits as near
akin to humanity as the dog and the
horse.
We are inclined to believe that the
well-bred mules possess undeveloped
qualities for both quick draught and the
saddle, for which the general public is
not inclined to give credit, and we are
convinced from actual observation that
for light, quick draught over long dis
tances and continuous from day to day
and for saddle gaits, mules out of thor
oughbred mares by the best Maltese
Jacks are fully equal and perhaps supe-
rior to our average light draught and
saddle horses.
We remember pair of mules, bred by
one of the Shelbys, in Kentucky, that
drew a carriage containing five heavy
men forty miles over an ordinary road
in five hours without turning hair or
crack of whip, and returned the next
day with equal ease and in the same
time.
In 1896 we saw on Red River, La,
$500 paid for saddle mule that could
pace at the rate of ten miles an hour
for hours together.
We have friend in Rappahannock,
Va, Tom Hughes, 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
several seasons rode in the first flight to
hound hunting country that was near
ly all mountain on a mule that never
made misstep or refused to leap a
fence or wall. F. G.. S.