The Butler weekly times. (Butler, Mo.) 1881-1918, 1911-05-18
BIOGRAPHY OF THE MULE
Distinguished Place Held BY Him in
Ancient Days.

Thos. 3. Mosby In Farm Journal.
And these are the children of Zibe.
on; both Allah, and Anah; this was
that Anah found the mules in the
wilderness, as he fed the asses Of
Zibeon, his father.-Genesis 1924.
Praised be Anah for this discovery.
The foregoing paragraph is not cited
as text for homily. 1t is simply
the first recorded reference to the
mule. From that time forth we find
his footprints prominent upon the
pages of history.
When Solomon was brought down
to Gihon to be anointed as king; he
rode King David's mule. We know,
therefore, that the mule had attained
a post of honor at least 1000 years
before the Christian era. Although,
in the twenty.one instances in which
this comely brute is mentioned in the
Bible, he is not once made the subject
of eulogy or the occasion Of rhapsody
as is the war horse in the book of
Jobe-yet his name is never taken in
vain, and there is always something
going forward whenever he happens
to be the subject of remark.
According to Rawlinson the mule
was in high favor among the ancient
Babylonians for both riding and driv-
ing, and was of great use in war.
But history is too full Of the neigh
ing steed" even to do justice to the
mule. As for the poets, one may
say that he is Stunned by them al
most unanimously. It was the head
of an ass, not that of a mule, around
which Titania twined her garlands.
Only one of the poets, when he un-
bars the gates Of song, attempts scant
justice to the mule. This is Pindar,
who, in his Sixth Olympic Ode, has
this to say:
'Oh, Phintis spurn each dull delay,
And haste the vigorous mules to join
Pursue thy clear and open way
To each his ancestor q remoteet line -
This occurs in the ode to Agesias
of Syracuse, on his victory in the
chariot mule race. Pindar's Fifth
Olympic Ode is to Psaulnis, victor in
another mule race; the ode opening
with these lines:
"Daughter Of Ocean! this sweet strain
Which Psaumis' lofty virtues wake,
Whose mules untired glide o'er Olympis's
plain.
And Victory g fairest chaplet gain,
With inind proportious take"
Nowadays the mule race is little
more than the clown-event or the
BOBBY contest at the ordinary country
fair. What a fall is this for the noble
beast who won his laurels at the
Olympic games!
Most mules of the present day are
If Spanish decent, and in America
here will be no dissent from the
statement that the mule is decidedly
he best thing that Spain has left us
If all her proud domain. The mules
to balk is preserved in the
evolutionary tendencies of the Span.
sh-American republics.
The Missouri mule now claims pre-
in America, and its clarion
,oice, mingled with the bray of num-
,rous politicians, is new heard round
he world. Texas, Missouri, Ten
lessee, Georgia and Mississippi now
ave about 200. 600 mules each and
hese five states alone, if they choose
o follow the military tactics of the
ncient Mesopotamain nations, could
'ut more than 1000, 600 mule-nount-
d cavalrymen in the field.
Down South" the big mules are {
nown as the sugar mules, and the
mall ones as the cotton mules. Their &
atural home, like that Of a negro, is
! the South-because they can stand
ne heat. It was in that section that
the reconstruction days, every ,
egro was promised 'forty acres and ,
mule" The southern gentlemen !
Tho had survived the war baked at !
lis proposition and organized the s
.uklux Khan, and the southern mule
still kicking.
The mule is living exemplification +
T the truth that it is the kicker that
lakes things 90. In every war it is +