i74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



' ' King Pharaoh, " an " educated horse ' ' who made his initial bow at 

 Wonderland Park yesterday, vindicated his honor at the close of one of the 

 performances of the day. There was a "doubting Thomas" in the audience 

 who thought the horse must have been given signals of some sort to perform 

 the mathematical and other wonders which were revealed during the performance. 



The man of inquiring and suspicious nature was told by Dr. J. M. Boyd, 

 the owner and trainer of the horse, that after the audience had left he could 

 remain and see for himself in the absence of the horse 's trainer. The ' ' doubting 

 Thomas ' ' was left alone with ' ' King Pharaoh. ' ' Shortly the man made his exit 

 with much expedition, with the horse a close second. The animal, the man said, 

 had obeyed several commands but seemed to become offended and "went" for 

 him, as if knowing he was confronted by a doubter. 



It seemed apparent that the object of this was to impress the writer 

 with the desirability of his not being skeptical about King Pharaoh's 

 abilities, or the horse might attack him and do him harm. 



After the trainer and his assistants had left the hall, the writer re- 

 peated every one of the experiments which had been performed by King 

 when his trainer was present. It may be stated in brief that he failed 

 to perform a single test satisfactorily. When told to go to the black- 

 board, without any gesture or sign other than the mere words of the 

 command, he did not respond. He could not react even to the word 

 "blackboard." But when urged with the uplifted hand in the act of 

 striking, and guided in the right direction, he would go and "study" 

 the numbers. But when invited to go to the rack and perform the so- 

 lution, he seemingly had no idea of what was said to him. But when 

 urged and threatened, he would pass along the rack without knocking 

 off any number. It was impossible to get him to remove a number by 

 telling him simply to find the correct one. It was the same in regard 

 to the spelling. In some cases when he was commanded in a threaten- 

 ing voice and manner to find numbers, he would paw, indicating that 

 he seemed to think the command was to count. The only reaction that 

 could be got from him was to stand before the blackboard, walk along 

 the rack when urged and threatened with a stick, but without any dis- 

 position to solve problems, and paw when a command such as " Go and 

 find Miss W." was continually repeated in an increasingly austere voice. 

 It was evident that the horse had no imagery whatever for the words 

 " Miss W.," and no notion of what was wanted of him. 



The trainer, who after a considerable period had come to the build- 

 ing to find out the progress of events, and who stood on the sidelines 

 while the writer was trying the horse out on some of his feats, finally 

 could not endure it any longer, and came into the ring, saying to the 

 audience, " Once in a while King will come across a man for whom he 

 will do nothing; but he will readily do it for most people." This re- 

 mark had the desired effect. Some persons in the audience were led to 

 think that the writer was not in sympathetic accord with the horse, and 



