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 182 People get statistics (not always correct) that a mule consumes so many pounds of barley and chopped straw per diem, and then they substitute (on paper) the same weight of oats, putting nothing down for hay for fodder and straw for litter, neither of which Spanish mules get in their own country, and forgetting that barley goes further than oats in the shape of nutrition; and thus they arrive at a false conclusion.

A mule, when doing the same work as a horse of his power, over stages with accommodation, must eat more than the horse to be able to do it; it is, therefore, doubtful whether he can ever compete with the horse in England. Abroad, he is undoubtedly useful in many parts, because he can stretch a point where a horse sometimes could not, through his being able to subsist for a few days on what would not maintain the horse; although, of course, he has to make up for it afterwards, which he will not forget to do. In the Spanish army, the mules get the ration-and-a-half of a horse’s barley. There are many more horses than mules in this service in Spain. We shall see presently how mules pay on tramways in England; but in the meantime it is certain that the companies are throwing away their best chance, which was that of finding out whether through being lighter in their feet, legs, and superstructure, they could stand battering about on pavements. To investigate this, they have shod them worse, in proportion to their build, than they have shod their horses.

So much for companies, societies, and all