182 HORSES AND ROADS. 



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 for- 

 getting 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, there- 

 fore, 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 corpo- 



