ROMANCE OF THE DUKES AND DUCHESSES 91 



portrait is a copy of one painted by an English 

 artist of renown in London on the occasion of one 

 of Mr. ALEXANDER'S trips to the other side while 

 still a comparatively young man. And before we 

 proceed to sketch the Duchess furore let us add 

 that Mr. ALEXANDER was by odds the most generous 

 patron of improved animal breeding of his time in 

 the United States, his ample fortune and his beau- 

 tiful Kentucky estate being for years a Mecca for all 

 who sought valuable materials for carrying forward 

 advanced work with Shorthorn and Jersey cattle, 

 Thoroughbred and Trotting horses, or Southdown 

 sheep. The great four-mile racer Lexington was 

 one of the particular joys of his long and useful life. 

 Strangely enough, Duchess 54th the ancestress 

 of the sensationally - successful Airdrie Duchess 

 family to which must be credited the virtual inau- 

 guration of the craze for BATES Shorthorn blood 

 throughout the United States, the progress of which 

 movement soon stirred English cattle breeding to 

 its very depths had been outcrossed with the very 

 last blood that THOMAS BATES would have selected 

 for such a purpose, that of JOHN BOOTH'S Bracelet, 

 twin sister of Necklace, that the dam of the Duke 

 of Northumberland had defeated at York as already 

 related. And here our story impinges upon the 



