THOTTING HOUSES. 185 



valued in America, and the value of a nag is in proportion 

 to the time in which he can trot his mile. The Yankee 

 is always practical ; he looks upon a horse as a trotting 

 machine ; and the equine machine, be it hideous beyond 

 expression, that can do its mile in two minutes and forty 

 seconds is worth more than the really good-looking beast 

 whose time is three minutes. The island-bred horses 

 have grand constitutions and are as tough as nails ; owing 

 to the absence of iron in the roads their legs and feet 

 wear well ; one rarely meets with an old horse groggy 

 about the knees. Fifty miles a day for several consecu- 

 tive days with a horse and buggy is thought nothing ex- 

 traordinary, and the horses do not receive one-half the care 

 or attention we are in the habit of bestowing upon our 

 nags in England. The winter affords great facilities for 

 locomotion and for practising the horses in trotting. Once 

 set in motion on the ice a heavy load is no draught. The 

 air is cold, and both horse and driver like to get over their 

 journey as rapidly as possible. 



The island " Derby " is held in mid-winter. A circular 

 mile course is laid off on the ice and marked out with 

 spruce bushes. The races are trotted in mile heats. 

 Some of the jockeys sit behind their trotters in light 

 skeleton-racing sleighs, others in ordinary sleighs, a few 

 adventurous spirits bestride their fiery coursers. They 

 are off is the cry. The jockeys yell hideously at their 

 flying steeds, 100 sleighs follow in their tracks, 500 bell 

 jingle. Men on foot and boys on skates crowd towards 

 the winning post in indescribable confusion. An ice-boat 

 shoots past at the rate of 30 miles an hour, and half-a- 

 dozen runaways is the immediate and inevitable conse- 



