Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1886 — A Mule Concert. [ARTICLE]

A Mule Concert.

Mules are chiefly found in the South and West. They have been more abused than Judas Iscariot. A boy who would not throw a stone at a mule when he gets a chance would be considered by his parents as too mean to raise. The mule is a good worker, but cannot be depended upon. He is liable to strike), and when ho strikes human calculation fails to fiild rule by any which to reckon when he will go to work again. It is useless to pound, for he will stand more beating than a sitting-room * carpet. He has been known to stand eleven days in one spot, apparently thinking about something, and start again as though nothing had happened. To fully appreciate the mule, ope should listen to his voice. You never can really know whether you like a mule or not till you hear him sing. I attended a mule concert at Chiekamauga during the war. The wagontrain was in front. The mules were starved for want. Tire gallant Cleburne was protecting the rear. Thomas pressed him hard. The rnrsic, or programme opened with a soprano solo, and then swung into a duet, and then pranced oft’ into a trio, followed up by a quartet, and ending with a full chorus of the whole army train. I didn’t hear the whole thing, for when I came to the regimental surgeon was standing over me, giving mo powerful restoratives, and I heard him say that I might possibly get out again, though I never would be a well man again. I have been in places where it took nerve to stand—such as falling out a throe-story window, and having been through the New York Exchange and spent a part of a day in a boiler factory, and have been on one or two Sunday-school excursions where the crowd were all girls —but I never knew what noise was till I heard a lot of army mules bray.— Dyersburg (Tenti.) Gazette. Costing $£09,000 to Humor a Child. Here is a good story that Lady Brassey, the irrepressible, got in Constantinople: “We went down as far as the French bridge, over which the contractor lost an immense lot of money in the following manner: The' bridge was to have been finished by a particular day, but the contractor found that this would be imposs ble with Turkish workmen unless he worked day and night. This lie obt'-ined leave to do, and the necessary lights and torches were supplied iit the Sultan’s expense. All went well for a time, till the unfortunate contractor was told that he must open the bridge to let a ship from, the dockyard pass through some time before the bridge was finished. He said it was impossible, as he would have ,to pull everything down, and it would take two or three months to replace the scaffolding and pile-driving machines. He went to the Minister of Marine and Finance. They said: ‘lf tho Sultan says it must be done, it must, or we shall lose our places, if not our heads.’ So the ship came out at a cost of a little over £IOO,OOO, aud a delay of three months in the completion of the bridge, all because the Sultan found liis small son crying in the harem one day, the child’s grief being that, though be had been promised to bo made an Admiral, ho could not see his flag hoisted on his particular ship on the nursery windows. So a large ironclad was brought out from the dockyard and moored in front of Dolmabagtcheh to gratify his infant mind, thus causing enormous inconvenience to the whole town for months, to say nothing of the waste of money, of which the Sultan pais very little, and for the loss of which, I imagine, he cared still less.”