The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1900-02-22

the country. There is an outbreak OF
glanders among the animals, but thai
outbreak came after the animals land.
ed in South Africa, and was possibly
due to the exhausted condition ia
which the animals reached Africa
which rendered them prone to the
many diseases that prevail there de-
structivc 10 horses and mules.
The Afrikander protest against tho
importation. OF American mules has
led the British Government to order
the inoculation of all the animals with
the Pasteur serum before being
shipped from here; but this inocula-
ton has shown not a single glandered
animal, thereby going long way to
prove that the outbreak of glanders
among the American pack animals
was not brought there by them. In
no wise dissuaded by the protests Of
the native farmers of the Cape Colony
against tho importation of American
mulos, the British War Office will in
crease the amount of its purchases
and after experimenting with italian
and Andalusian mules it has closed its
purchasing bureaus in Naples and
Gibraltar, and will use only American
animals bought in the Southwest and
shipped through New Orleans.
The extent OF tho purchases will
depend, of course, on the duration OF
the Boer war. Present appearances
would seem to call for 80, 900 or more
mules. War is heavy consumer OF
mules. They wear ont in compare
lively short time, for they receive
very little attention-one of their
chief merits being their toughness
and their ability to take care of them
selves and TO endure all the privations
to which they may be subjected. They
are completely used up and of little
value after a campaign, as the United
States found when it tried to sell
some of the superAuous mules en-
ployed in the Santiago campaign.
Whether the mule would be useful
in war in temperate country is Z
question that cannot well be determ.
ined. His toughness, his stolid-
ness, his ability to get along with lit.
tie care, to stand any climate, and to
exist with far less water and food
than his half brother the horse. would
seem to make him valuable animai
for army packing purposes in any
climate, but to his importance, value
and indeed necessity in campaign
in tropical o. semi-tropical country
the United States, Great Britain and
Spain can all testify. He is now
more important TO, an army than q
horse, and as essential as the artillery
itself. Without him an army can nr
longer move any distance without
danger of running out of its supplies.
Tho recent fight at Nicholson's Mex
bore evidence 10 the imp ortance of
the mule in warfare; for the result OF
the battle was largely due to the
mules, which ran off and left the
British without ammuniton--these,
by the by, were Spanish. not Ameri-
can mules, the first cargo of the latter
having not yet reached Cape Colony.
AT present nearly all the mules at tho
front in South Africa are the Ameri-
car animal, who are giving Generals
Butler, Gatacre aud Methuen vslu.
able assistance in their campaign.
1t can be readily seen from these
facts why mule famine is threatened
in the early future when the present
supply of mules is exhausted. Mule
breeding has started up largely in ali
parts of the West and Southwest, in
consequence of the improved value OF
the mules, but the supply of brood
mares is now very limited, and it will
be some years before the new crop of
animals is on the market. New York
Sun.