IN NEW YORK. 509 



struct him in the business sufficiently to enable him to 

 travel, to which I devoted about a week's time. He- 

 turning North with improved health, I reorganized my 

 business so as to strike only large centers, and was so 

 engaged in Michigan in the winter of '72, when business 

 requirements demanded my going to New York. Some- 

 what to my surprise, I found Mr. Pratt located in the city, 

 advertising himself as the " Great Horse-tamer of the 

 World, the Author of a New System," etc., and resorting 

 to the boldest methods of charlatanism, such as buying ar- 

 ticles and arranging to have them presented to him as if 

 voluntary gifts from his classes, etc. This role he played 

 quite successfully in Philadelphia and other cities. 



Calling upon him at a time when there were a number 

 of other gentlemen present, he addressed me as though I 

 were but a casual acquaintance, saying, " Magner, I have 

 the best trained horses in the world, and the best system 

 in the world." Such presumption on his part aroused my 

 indignation, and I determined to show him up. 



Before I started him in the business, he did not pretend 

 to know anything more about horses than he was able to 

 learn from ordinary observation, and experience of driving 

 one to a grocery wagon. I simply said to him, " I think 

 you have carried this matter too far, and now I shall make 

 it my business to show what you can do." 



Being entirely unknown there, I found myself con- 

 fronted with great difficulties. In the first place. New 

 York is the great metropolis of the country, and its horse- 

 men undoubtedly are the most skillful and critical in the 

 world, well read, extremely practical, with the broadest 

 and most A^aried experience. In horse-taming, they had 

 seen Rarey, Fancher, and Hamilton. They had now had in 

 the city, for over three months, Pratt in one part and Mr. 

 Rockwell in another, both making the most extraAagant 



