HOW THE TROTTING HORSE IS BRED. 539 



be of a nominally "national" character. On invitation Secretary 

 Packer visited Woodburn, and for a promised consideration it 

 was all arranged that the President and Secretary of the N. A. of 

 T. H. B. would call a convention. With the initial step thus 

 safely provided for, Mr. Brodhead was everywhere, east and west, 

 north and south, beating up recruits. In a short time, evidently 

 by preconcerted arrangement, there was an unusual number of 

 horsemen in town, some of them very rich men, while the greater 

 number were blowers of the Dr. Day type with a grievance. The 

 horsemen were hustled together by Secretary Packer, in what 

 was called an impromptu meeting, and there President Mali, 

 after some apparent hesitation, fulfilled his part of the agree- 

 ment and called the convention at Chicago, and thus Mr. Brod- 

 head secured his share and we will see how the other side fared 

 further on. 



When the convention assembled at Chicago it was indeed a 

 motley mass. President Mali took his place as president, and 

 called the convention to order, and Secretary Packer took his 

 place as secretary. This, as I understand, was not by the choice of 

 the convention, but by virtue of their positions in the N. A. of T. 

 H. B. It was eventually determined that the meeting should be 

 composed of delegates from State associations, and when the as- 

 sociations were called, several of them had never been heard of 

 before and never have been heard of since. They were bogus 

 associations, and were gotten up especially for the occasion. 

 Some of the delegates bore names that never had been heard of 

 in the office of the "Register," and it may be inferred they never 

 bred a standard horse. The names of others, again, were well 

 known in the office from their efforts to get spurious and un- 

 known crosses accepted. All these men were anxious for a new 

 management. One man whom I had discharged from my office 

 a few weeks before represented a New England State. He was 

 guilty of a flagrant attempt at deception. He was a fawning 

 sycophant, always laughing at his own supposed wit, and he was 

 known in the office as "Uriah Heep." The man who domi- 

 nated the convention from beginning to end had not been ap- 

 pointed a delegate by his own association. The whole thing, as 

 a convention, was about as hollow a sham as was ever enacted in 

 Chicago. Next behind the gentlemen who by courtesy may be 

 designated as delegates, sat the moneyed men who were anxiously 

 looking for a good investment for some of their loose funds, and 



