152 Saddle and Sir Coin, 



Now, that perhaps less prejudiced but not more 

 clear-cutting brains are left to work their way up that 

 channel of science which he buoyed out, each year 

 confirms the belief that he was not so very far wrong 

 when, in speaking of one of his best Duchesses, he 

 said to Lord Althorp, " The destiny of shorthorns de- 

 pends on this calf this slender thread of a calf."* 



In the following year Mr. Bates saw the merits of 

 the Princess or St. Albans tribe (which had recovered 

 the quality that Jupiter lost) so keenly at Mason's 

 sale, that he determined, if possible, to get his new 

 cross from it. At that time St. Albans, who went 

 back direct to Favourite and Hubback, missing the 

 dreaded Punch, was about fifteen years old, and he 

 had been lot for three years into Northumberland. 

 Mason had got him in a sly way at first for 2O/., 

 through a butcher, whom he sent as his agent ; and 

 when Mr. Wood was at Chilton three years after, and 

 only caught a glimpse of his head, he exclaimed, 

 " Why, there's my old Prince ; he was bougJit to kill" 

 And sure enough it was Prince, but canonized in life 

 as " St. Albans !" 



How to bring about his long-cherished combination 



* Although he had got as far as (63), he had made but little figure 

 with the Duchesses, when he moved from the Tyneside to Kirkleving- 

 ton, whither Red Rose, who had been bought from Mr. Hustler, ac- 

 companied him. She was three removes from Favourite on one side 

 and two on the other, and from the union of her and the Earl (646) 

 came Second Hubback (1423). His idolatry for this bull did his herd 

 no small harm ; and it was only when he found that he had lost 28 

 calves in one year, solely through lack of constitution, that he began 

 to cast about, and in vain applied to Mr. Whitaker for his famous 

 Frederick. Perhaps on no occasion was Mr. Bates so offended with 

 any one as he was with poor old Coates, when, in 1828, he met him 

 with Mr. Whitaker and Colonel Powell, of Pennsylvania, in the yard 

 at Greenholme. His aim was to get him, as a great authority, to go 

 and lay his hand, in the presence of that pioneer of our shorthorns in 

 America, solemnly on the bull, and speaking from the hoary depths of 

 experience, to proclaim him quite equal to the First Hubback ; but the 

 author of the " Herd-Book was not the man to speak against his 

 convictions. 



