:254 THE HOUSE OF AMERICA. 



The name "Messenger" was more sadly abused in its 

 duplication in the closing of the last and the early decades of 

 the present century than that of any other horse, or perhaps of 

 all other horses of that period put together. Multitudes of his 

 .sons were called "Messenger," and, in the next generation, mul- 

 titudes of his grandsons gloried in the same cognomen, and thus 

 generation after generation perpetuated it, in widening circles, 

 till "confusion became worse confounded," leaving the historian 

 in helpless and hopeless ignorance as to what was true and what 

 was false. When grey horses in the second, third, or fourth re- 

 move from the imported horse became old, it required but little 

 "diplomacy" to satisfy the public that they were true sons of 

 the original, and this became the custom. 



