The Rhode Island Republican

A NOVEL MODE OF SHEEP DRIVING.

A butcher's boy, of York, having been sent on Sunday morning last to fetch up two sheep from a field near Bootham Stray, resolved to try an experiment on the habits of that patient animal, in order to drive them with greater ease to himself. He had seen hounds run in couples, and reasoning by analogy, why might not sheep? The youth, therefore, took a cord, and with it yoked his fleecy charge together, never dreaming that the union might produce an agitation, which would compel its repeal.

Experiment, however, has overturned many a plausible theory; and so it did in the present instance. The parties not being exactly agreed, began to pull different ways, and, feeling the unusual restraint which was imposed on them, they commenced a sort of steeple chase in search of their wonted liberty. A cow which was lying at her ease on the green sward, directly in the line of their hurried flight, presented a little obstacle, which they attempted to surmount in their sheepish way, not by turning aside, but by leaping over it. One of them made a spring, and was fairly over the mountain of beef, but the unlucky cord happening to rest across the cow's back, up she sprang, roused by the sudden liberty taken with her person, and found herself in possession of two fat sheep, as nicely balanced as ever were panniers on an ass, or the famed bottles which dangled at the saddle bow of Johnny Gilpin.

Away ran the beef with the mutton, whilst the astonished lad joined in the pursuit, with the prospect before him of his experimental cord anticipating the knife of the butcher. The cow at length began to be fatigued with her load, and this enabled the pursuer to come up in time to prevent the catastrophe; and, suddenly cutting the cord, the two fleeces fell to the ground, and they were driven to the city in the usual way, the youth being satisfied that, though dogs may do very well yoked together, it is not exactly the same thing with sheep.-[English Paper.]