68 THE NARRAQANSETT PACER. 



Pacers, whenever they could be found, would most readily 

 answer the desired end. 



The expense of this was, of course, considerable, since the 

 pacer could not be used for any other purpose ; when, there- 

 fore, the roads improved, in proportion to the improvement of 

 the country and the general increase of the population, wheel- 

 carriages generally came into use, and the draught-horse took 

 the place of the saddle-horse. It was soon found that a horse 

 could not be kept even tolerably fit for the saddle, if he was 

 allowed to work in the plough or draw the team, while the 

 same labor in no wise detracted from the chaise or carriage- 

 horse. The pacer, therefore, gave way to the trotter; and the 

 riding-horse, from being an article of necessity, became ex- 

 clusively one of luxury ; to such a degree, that, until compara- 

 tively a recent period, when ladies began again to take up 

 riding, there have been very few distinctively broken riding- 

 horses, and still fewer kept exclusively as such in the Northern 

 States of America. 



This, unquestionably, is the cause of the extinction of the 

 pacer, although there have been pacing-horses in the eastern 

 Bcction of this country, professedly from Khode Island, and 

 called by names implying a Narragansett origin ; and although 

 it may well be that they were from that region, and possibly, 

 in a remote degree, from that blood, yet they did not pace 

 naturally because they were Narragansett Pacers, but were so 

 called, because coming somewhere from that region of country, 

 they paced by accident — as many chance horses do — or, in some 

 instances, had been taught to pace. 



Considering the rare qualities of this variety, and its ad- 

 mirable adaptedness for many purposes of pleasure and conve- 



