436 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



" I am truly sorry that I cannot give you the true pedigree of tlie mare, but 

 it cannot be done. There is no man here or anywhere else that can tell you 

 anything more than I have stated herein. 



"You will no doubt think that there is considerable of superfluous matter 

 in this letter, but I do not see how I could tell you what I wanted to in fewer 

 words. 



" Everything stated herein is truth, and, if necessary, 1 am willing to make 

 affidavit to the same at any time. Very truly yours, 



"HENRYC. BROWN." 



Mr. Romaine's representation amounted to nothing definite or 

 satisfactory about the pedigree of Belle of Wabash, because he 

 failed to give the name and location of her breeder, but Mr. 

 Brown's letter clears this all up on the grounds that Mr. Romaine 

 really did not know the breeder's name. Whatever her sire and 

 whatever her dam, we may feel sure they were not trotting-bred, 

 although she was a trotter. We are left, therefore, to conclude 

 that, as in a thousand other cases, this mare was a pacing-bred 

 trotter. The one point that is vital is settled by Mr, Brown, as 

 he was with Mr. Romaine when he bought the mare and knew 

 all about the transaction. He cannot remember the breeder's 

 name, but he locates him as "living a mile and a half north of 

 Brazil/' and that it is now all cut up into residence and mining 

 lots. This seems to fix the location of the breeder beyond all 

 doubt. This old man seems to have been a. pioneer in a very 

 poor county and still a comparative wilderness when this transac- 

 tion took place. At that time the coal fields had not been 

 touched, and it is wholly beyond belief that he took his unknown 

 old mare out of his own county, across the adjoining county of 

 Parke and into Vermilion County, wherever in it Mr. Weisiger 

 lived, to have her bred to his part-bred stallion Bassinger. And 

 then when he came to sell the foal at three years old for $85, 

 when horses were high, can we believe he would do so with- 

 out ever mentioning how the filly was bred? The chain of 

 ownership is complete, as she passed from her unnamed breeder 

 to Mr. Romaine, from him to Mr. Alexander, in whose hands 

 she did her trotting, and then to Mr. Williams, and there is no 

 place for the Louisville humbug pedigree to come in. She got 

 her bogus pedigree at the same time and in the same way that 

 Magowan and Gipsy Queen got theirs, and there was not a single 

 shadow of truth in any one of them. The tenacity with which 

 some people hold on to a "thoroughbred" origin for their trot- 

 ters when the evidence is all against them has long been a mys- 



