LIFE SKETCH. 47 



My success at Buffalo was simply wonderful, as I 

 did more business than was ever before accomplished 

 by any one in my profession — for which I am in- 

 debted in a great measure to the friendship and as- 

 sistance of such gentlemen as C. J. Hamlin and his 

 son William, proprietors of the Village Stock Farm; 

 John G. Avery, proprietor of the Continental Hotel; 

 J. W. Ruger, a large iron - founder; Lytle & Sons, 

 harness-manufacturers, and hundreds of others whom 

 I shall never forget. One of the most vicious horses 

 handled here was a valuable trotter belonging to Mr. 

 Avery. 



GREAT TRIUMPH IN CHICAGO. 



Being now a master of my profession, thoroughly 

 capable of giving instruction anywhere, I opened in 

 Chicago at Grenier's West Madison Street Garden, 

 in December, 1884, and for ten weeks, before crowded 

 houses, I handled two hundred and sixteen different 

 horses, all of them vicious or unbroken. Perhaps the 

 most notorious of these were a mare belonging to the 

 proprietor of the Gait House — "a horse composed of 

 steel springs, loaded with dynamite," as the press of 

 Chicago termed her — and another mare belonging to 

 the Great Western Lightning-rod Co., which had 

 been offered for sale at less than one-half her value, 

 as no one was willing to risk life by driving her; 

 neither was it considered possible ever to so control 

 her that she would be safe to drive. But the day 

 after receiving her first and only lesson, "Mr. Hay- 

 man had her hitched up, and, without trouble, was 

 able to control her perfectly, and she is not now for 

 sale at any price." My prolonged stay in Chicago 

 was not only very profitable, but extremely pleasant, 

 as will more fully appear by a perusal of the follow- 

 ing from the Chicago Horseman of February 14, 1885: 



