ASS SKINNING 245 



them or cut of their skyns, and to the great laugh- 

 ing of them that dyd behold them." There is a 

 tradition that no one has ever seen a dead donkey, 

 and these unknown yokels of some unidentified 

 country were entirely unsuccessful in their quest. 

 That the asses should be held "sely" for objecting 

 to be skinned alive seems a rather severe judg- 

 ment upon them. All these old writers crib from 

 each other and from the ancients. The tale as we 

 give it is from Lupton, but even so sane a writer as 

 Parkinson tells how that " asses by chance eating of 

 the herbe did fall into so deepe a sleepe that they 

 seemed dead, which when some came to flay them 

 they flang from them in the doing it, to their amase- 

 ment and merriment." It is really, therefore, 

 scarcely worth while in many cases to quote one's 

 authority, as the same recipes or marvels are found 

 in a dozen writers, each man, unless quoting from 

 Pliny or other venerable writer, telling the matter 

 in his own words, to salve his conscience, and to 

 escape, if it may be, a charge of plagiarism. It is 

 needless to quote as from A or from Z when all the 

 intermediate letters of the alphabet no less reproduce 

 the same material dished up in a slightly different 

 way. 



The Alexanders the Smyrnium Olusatrum of the 

 botanist, and a near relative of the hemlock is a 

 noble growth that we may include in our floral 

 belongings. It is of sturdy habit, attaining to a 



