Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/618

 The Arabian Nights story of a conversation overheard between the ox and the ass shows the estimation in which he was held; and it is written that Mohammed himself had two asses, one of which was called Yafūr, nor did that great man disdain to ride double. But here in India, by formal prescription, only the gypsy, the potter, the washerman, and such-like folk, out-caste or of low caste, will mount or own the ass. This prescription.



and the ridiculous Hindu association of the donkey with the goddess of small-pox, account for the universal dislike and disdain in which this most useful, sagacious, and estimable animal is held. He is never fed by his owners, and his chronic hunger is mocked by a popular saying that to feed a donkey is neither sin nor sacrifice.

It would seem difficult to be cruel to a goat, but the keepers of the flocks of milch-goats regularly driven morning and evening into Indian cities contrive to inflict a good deal of pain. The nipples of the udder are tied up in torturing fashion, and there is an unnecessary use of the staff. But the worst cruelty is the practice of flaying them alive, in the belief that skins thus prepared have a better quality. The magistrates in the Presidency towns