652 
MISCELLANEA. 
(like many a better) had gone to back some other favourite of 
the race ! 
The reins too were gone — yes ! his disconsolate master, like 
a drunken man, had slipped off the curb ! 
Woe ! Woe ! but what avails it crying woe to a dead don- 
key ? — Were I thy master, I would have thy portrait taken. 
How many an A double S is drawn by an R. A. ! There is a 
placid docility about thy head that might supply Gall or Spurz- 
heim with a lecture ; but no cast remains to immortalize thee — 
albeit thy master in thy life made many an impression with whacks . 
Like a card-player, thou has cut the pack, and left it in the 
hands of the dealer . 
Unlike thy ragged brethren that run loose upon the common, 
exposing their ribs (as vulgar husbands do their wives in general 
company), there is a plumpness and rotundity in thy appearance, 
that plainly proves thee no common donkey ! — the smoothness of 
thy coat, too, shews thy owner’s care. 
He doubtless liked thee (as Indians do their food) well curried ! 
“ Farewell, Edward,” I exclaimed, too serious on the occasion 
to use the familiar epithet of Neddy ! 
I heard footsteps! I saw a man approach the spot I had just 
quitted. He was a tall raw-boned looking gipsy. Concealed 
from observation by the intervening hedge, I watched his 
motions. 
I saw him stride across the poor animal ; drawing a clasp knife 
from his breast, he looked wistfully around him. I had often 
read of famished Russians devouring their horses ! What did he 
meditate ? 
Keen hunger was depicted in his sharp countenance ! 
The vagrant wielded his knife. I stood breathless — the 
next moment — I saw him cut a huge stake . 
“ From the donkey ?” 
No; from the adjoining hedge ! Comic Offering. 
Bread for Horses. 
Experience has proved that 1000 kilogrammes (2214 lbs. 
avoirdupois) of oatmeal will serve to make 480 loaves, which, at 
two loaves per day, will keep a horse 240 days much better than 
6000 kils of crude oats. There would then be much economy in 
feeding horses with oat-bread, and which might be rendered more 
nourishing by mixing with it a little rye. It could be prepared 
in the form of cake, like sea biscuit, and thus might be kept a 
long time, without any of its nutritive properties being lost. 
Annales de V Agric. Franfaise, Jul. 1837. 
