MULES HONOURED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 99, 29 April 1939, Page 16

MULES HONOURED.

AN ANNUAL FESTIVAL. CELEBRATION IN TENNESSEE. REGION THAT RAISES lONSEASED BEASTS (By MOUZON B. PETERS.) COLUMBIA (Tenn.)> March 18. "A Thousand Girls and a Thousand Mules" is the Campaign cry for this Maury county city as plans begin to materialise for the spectacular extravaganza, Mule Day, sponsored annually here. Columbia, recognised widely by her self-styled nickname, "The Dimple of the Universe," will be hostess on April 3 to thousand's who will pack the streets from early morning until night to witness ' the colourful parades of mules, floats, mules, bands, mules, pretty girls, more mules, fancy saddle horses and still more mules. The Columbia Chamber of Commerce has announced its intention of putting the 1000 girls and 1000 mules into the parades as its contribution to the annual festival. Middle Tennessee beauties will ride the long-eared quadrupeds which are, to Maury County, monarchs of the animal kingdom. So important is the lowly mule here that the breeding and raising of the animal has become one of the principal industries in this section of the south. Columbia boasts one of the longest street mule markets in the world. Annually, thousands of mules are bought 'and 6old on the streets of the city. Regular sales are conducted during the winter months, and the rapid-fire jargon of the mule auctioneer rivals that heard in the tobacco warehouses. The sales end each year on the first Monday in April, and the citizens of the city and county gather to pay homage to their "king- of beasts." The celebration has attracted each succeeding year larger crowds, and now draws notables from all parts of the nation. Industries, civic organisations and schools of the area co-operate in providing a variety of entertainment for the day, which usually ends in a ijala grand ball at which the Mule Day Queen is crowned. The lovely Middle Tennessee lass who receives this honour rides in splendour in the grand parade preceding the ball with the huge black animal selected as "King Mule." It is hardly necessary to say that the farmers of Maury County swear both by and at the mule, that hardy work animal which evolved between the cotton rows of Dixie as offspring of the mare and the jack. He inherited intelligence from both dam and sire. The jack bequeathed him that stoical philosophy which the ill-advised often call stubbornness. In Middle Tennessee, though, many say that, when a mule goes "hardheaded" it is because of a well-guided conviction that his judgment is better than that of the man 'behind him—"and usually the mule is right."—N.A.N.A.