809 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
AN ASININE MYSTERY. 
At this time of the year the cattle-market at Islington 
presents once a week a peculiarly animated appearance. It 
is the season for the sale of donkeys. Having faithfully 
served their masters through the spring and summer months 
their services are no longer required, and can only be retained 
except at a serious sacrifice. They come from the heath at 
Hampstead, and from the Rye at Peckham, from Epping 
Forest, and from other holiday resorts for the million, and 
have been engaged in the “ penny a ride ” interest. With 
the fall of the leaf, however, there ceases to be a demand 
for this kind of sportive equestrianism, and it would be 
simply ruinous for their gipsy proprietors to allow the un¬ 
saddled creatures to stand the whole winter through 
in stable and perform the unprofitable feat of " eating 
their heads ofT." Besides these there are hundreds of 
the same patient tribe that have been temporarily the 
property of the costermongers of the metropolis from May to 
October, and while the various fruits and vegetable succeed 
each other the peripatetic greengrocer and fruiterer can afford 
to harness a donkey to the shafts of his heavily-laden 
barrow, but with the approach of winter (c trade ” becomes 
dull, and the asses' occupation is gone. Under such cir¬ 
cumstances, there is nothing astonishing in the fact that, 
with bleak November within hail, a large number of the 
animals in question are taken to market to be sold, and the 
wonder is—who buys them ? To what purpose are they 
applied by the purchasers? There was a time when the 
vulgar belief existed that the flesh of the ass was utilised to 
supplement a scarcity of veal, but in these days of shrewd 
sanitary supervision such uncomfortable suspicions need 
trouble no one„ It is well known that the ass is not a 
creature that may be killed and cut up for the sake of 
its carcase, even as food for the feline and canine species. 
Its customary leanness would forbid the speculation, to say 
nothing of the fact that at those establishments where horse- 
beef is prepared the employes have a horror of dead donkeys, 
holding it beyond dispute that to have the handling of one 
carries a penalty of bad luck for an indefinite period. There 
is a vague rumour that at the commencement of winter 
our surplus donkeys are sent to Holland and employed there 
in various hydraulic industries; but no one ever yet saw a 
consignment of asses on board an outward bound Rotterdam 
lii. 57 
