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ALMOST HUMAN 
in a luxurious loose-box in a high-class livery stable. So Merriwee 
proves once more the oft repeated assertion that donkeys are not half 
as stupid as they are popularly supposed to be. 
Not everybody believes in the intelligence of these much maligned 
animals, however, and once poor Merriwee was hired to act as a sand- 
wich man. He had two big boards hung over his sides, and a liquor 
seller had him paraded through the streets carrying the statement that 
he was the only creature that did not drink his particular brand of intoxi- 
cant, and that was because he was an ass. 
Besides being a noted performer on the stage, Merriwee has assisted 
in raising large sums of money for patriotic and charitable purposes, by 
being lent at carnivals. But this has come to an end through the cruelty 
he has had to suffer at the hands of unscrupulous people. Several times 
he has returned home so thoroughly exhausted that he was unable to do 
his ordinary work for days, and the last time he was unfit to move for 
over a week. It was incredible the torture he had endured from men 
who jumped on his back, half a dozen at a time, and flogged him to make 
him run beneath this staggering load. 
AN OUTLAW HYBRID. 
Merriwee has a most distinguished half-brother, a hybrid zebra. 
This curious little animal has the true donkey cross on his back — that 
wonderful cross that is said to have been bestowed upon the donkey for 
ever as a reward for the way an ass carried our Lord on His way to 
Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. He is a very dark grey, almost 
slaty-black in parts, and has the zebra markings on his legs only. His 
form is that of the zebra, though rather more like a pony than either 
zebra or donkey. He is now well over twenty years of age, and in his 
callow youth it was thought that he might be turned to useful as well 
as ornamental purposes. But no mule that ever made the driver of a 
transport waggon forget his promises to never swear again was half the 
outlaw that this hybrid was. He considered that he was not an ordinary 
animal. He was a most extraordinary one — why should he work for his 
living when so many everyday creatures were there to toil for him? He 
classed himself with the lilies of the field, and after one great attempt 
was made to teach him to become independent, he was given up as a 
graceless, useless burden on the pay roll. 
A celebrated horse breaker, who boasted that he could tame anything 
on four legs, undertook for the love of the thing to break the gentleman 
in to harness. He brought enough gearing with him to rope in an 
elephant. Mr. Meaker, senior, knew as much as anyone did about breaking 
