Various opinions are held as to what the mule can be made to do under the saddle, many persons asserting that in crossing the plains he can be made to perform almost equal to the horse.  This is true on the prairie.  But there he works with every advantage over the horse.  In 1858, I rode a mule from Cedar Valley, forty-eight miles north of Salt Lake City, to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a distance of nearly fourteen hundred miles.  Starting from Cedar Valley on the 22d of October, I reached Fort Leavenworth on the 31st of December.  At the end of the journey the animal was completely worn down.

In this condition I put her into Fleming’s livery stable, in Leavenworth City, and was asked if she was perfectly gentle.  One would suppose that, in such a condition, she would naturally be so.  I assured the hostler that she was; that I had ridden her nearly a year, and never knew her to kick.  That same morning, when the hostler went to feed her, she suddenly became vicious, and kicked him very severely.  She was then about twelve years old.  I have since thought that when a mule gets perfectly gentle he is unfit for service.

Proprietors of omnibuses, stage lines, and city railroads have, in many cases, tried to work mules, as a matter of economy; but, as a general thing, the experiment proved a failure, and they gave it up and returned to horses.  The great reason for this failure was, that the persons placed in charge of them knew nothing of their disposition, and lacked that experience in handling them which is so necessary to success.  But it must be admitted that, as a general thing, they are not well adapted for road or city purposes, no matter how much you may understand driving and handling them.

The mule may be made to do good service on the prairies, in supplying our army, in towing canal boats in hauling cars inside of coal mines—­ these are his proper places, where he can jog along and take his own time, patiently.  Work of this kind would, however, in nearly all cases, break down the spirit of the horse, and render him useless in a very short time.

I have seen it asserted that there were mules that had been known to trot in harness in three minutes.  In all my experience, I have never seen any thing of the kind, and do not believe the mule ever existed that could do it.  It is a remarkably good road horse that will do this, and I have never yet seen a mule that could compare for speed with a good roadster.  I have driven mules, single and double, night and day, from two to ten in a team, and have handled them in every way that it is possible to handle them, and have in my charge at this time two hundred of the best mule teams in the world, and there is not a span among them that could be forced over the road in four minutes.  It is true of the mule that he will stand more abuse, more beating, more straining and constant dogging at him than any other animal used in a team.  But all the work you can get out of him, over and above an ordinary day’s work, you have to work as hard as he does to accomplish.