This wonderful horse, which in the opinion of its friends was the means
of deciding in the affirmative the old, old, question of the
rationality of the lower forms and thus changing radically the existing
Weltanschauung, aroused world-wide interest. A flood of articles
appeared in the newspapers and magazines, two monograph[1, 2] attempts at
explanation were devoted to him.[F] He was made the subject of popular
couplets, and his name was sung on the vaudeville stage. He appeared
upon picture post-cards and upon liquor labels, and his popularity was
shown by his reincarnation in the form of children's playthings. Many
personages of note who had seen the horse's exhibitions, declared, some
of them in public statements, that they were now convinced. Among these,
besides Mr. Schillings, were naturalists of note; e. g.: the African
explorer Prof. G. Schweinfurth, Dr. Heinroth and Dr. Schaeff, the
director of the zoological garden in Hanover; there were likewise
horse-fanciers of first-rank, such as General Zobel, and the well-known
hippological writer Major R. Schoenbeck. Again, the well-known
zooelogist, K. Moebius, writing in the "National-zeitung" declared he was
convinced of the horse's power to count and to solve arithmetical
problems. He also said that he believed the horse's memory and acute
power of sense-discrimination to be at the root of the matter. Those who
gleaned all their knowledge of the horse from newspaper reading were
satisfied to arrest judgment, or, on the other hand, became indignant at
the supposed imposition on the part of the gentleman of leisure and at
the gullibility of the public. Some would of course attempt explanations
on the basis of older facts. Here we have two points of view.
[Footnote F: The works referred to in the text are to be found listed
on pages 267 ff.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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