HIS GOOD QUALITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 65, 17 March 1900, Page 1 (Supplement)

HIS GOOD QUALITIES.

The mule, says Mr Townshend, is nearly always healthy.

He misses the miserable liability to curbs and spavins and ring- bones and a hundred other weaknesses to which our modern horseflesh is heir ! think he lias made a. good bargain. It is seldom indeed that one sees a mule sick or sorry. The only thing to which lie ever seems specially liable is colic. And that is to be attributed not to any weakness of digestion on his part, but to our own mismanagement. Xo grass-fed mule dies of colic. But if avc take him up and work him till lie is hungry, and (hen give him :i large feed of* Indian corn, already shelled, lie will gobble it down voraciously, half-chewed, and afterwards probaby be seen rolling in, agony on the ground. In addition to this, although lie costs more than the horse, he is more economical in the end: — He eats less, he requires less shoeing, for his feet grow so slowly that the shoes do not require resetting until they are worn out; lie is less liable to disease, and he lasts longer. HE BELIEVES IN SPOOKS. The aristocracy of mnledom in one respect resembles the aristocracy of intellect among his human employers. For lie believes in spooks. The finest mule that Mr Townshend ever possessed, every evening1 towards dusk espied , a ghost, and promptly sent his rider over his head. The ghost, always stood oil the side of. the road, never in front, and this resulted in a sidelong spring very embarrassing to spookblintl mortals.