EARLY HORSE HISTORY C AX A DA. 145 



the powerful confederation of the Six Nations Indians interposed 

 an unsurmountable barrier to all trade, whether legitimate or 

 illicit, between the Canadians and the colonists of New England. 

 This objection is certainly conclusive as applied to the different 

 periods of hostilities, but the hostilities were not continuous. 

 During both the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries there 

 ivere periods of years at a stretch when there were no hostilities, 

 and when there was nothing to prevent the Canadian and the 

 Yankee from coming together and exchanging what they each 

 had that the other wanted. The border abounds in traditions of 

 the incidents connected with this illicit trading, but we need not 

 go to the border in the wilderness to learn that the desire to 

 "beat the customs" is almost universal. We can see it mani- 

 fested every day at the docks in New York, when a steamer 

 arrives from abroad. The fine lady, with her gloves and lots of 

 other lingerie that she has been contriving all the way across how 

 best to keep from the sight of the officer, is no better and no 

 worse than the "Canuck," who in a retired place at midnight 

 trades his peltry to the Yankee for his horse. If the Canadian 

 pacer did not have his origin in New England it was not because 

 he could not be carried across the border. 



When we enter upon the consideration of the actual performers 

 descended from the original Canadian stock, we find both pacers 

 and trotters of speed and merit, but in attempting to trace them 

 to their particular ancestors we find ourselves in a labyrinth 

 from which there seems to be no deliverance. In the midst of 

 this darkness I am glad to be able to say there is a ray of light 

 that illumines much that has been obscure. The greatest pro- 

 genitor of trotters and pacers that Canada has produced, "Old 

 Tippoo," has been fully identified in his true origin, and he has 

 been well named "The Messenger of Canada." He seemed to be 

 known all over Canada as the greatest of their trotting and pac- 

 ing sires, and many attempts were made through several years to 

 give his pedigree, but in all these attempts there were elements 

 of weakness and in many of them very bald absurdities. 



When the roan gelding Tacony made his record of 2:27, away 

 back in 1853, the performance was looked upon as something that 

 would not be surpassed in a generation at least. Then when 

 Toronto Chief made his saddle record of 2:24^, ten or twelve 

 years later, and it was found that he and Tacony were both 

 descended from a Canadian horse called Tippoo, the inquiry be- 



