The Driving Clubs of Greater Bostonjj 



187 



The avenger was tried twice for murder. 

 The first time the jury disagreed; the second 

 time he was acquitted on the ground of in- 

 sanity, but was released after a brief stay in 

 an asylum, from which he emerged to gather 

 political honors and wealth. 



It is entirely of granite, this monument. 

 AMp is a life-sized figure of Florence Scan- 

 nell as he was when he was shot down, in his 

 twenties — a tall, smooth-faced young man in 

 a frock coat, without a hat, holding open with 

 one hand the pages of a book, presumably a 

 prayer book. 



( >n one face of the six-foot square base is 

 his name, with the dates of his birth and 

 death. On another face is a blank space left 

 open for the record of John J. Scannell. 



On the other two sides are curious carvings. 

 1 >ne shows John J. Scannell at home with his 

 family. He is sitting at a table with his wife, 

 his mother and his young children, reading 

 from a book to them. This is supposed to be 

 a typical Scannell home scene. 



The remaining face of the base shows a 

 famous trotting horse — The Abbott — which 

 John J. Scannell once owned and which was 

 the dearest possession of his life, rivaled only 

 by his famous house in Saratoga when that 

 resort was in its heyday, which was known as 

 the Chateau Ophelia. 



On the monument the horse is shown in a 

 meadow, with a barn in the distance and a run- 

 ning brook in the foreground. It is an ex- 

 tremely unusual decoration for a tombstone, 

 but so great was John J. Scannell's affection 

 for his trotter that he insisted The Abbott's 

 portrait in stone should be along with his own 

 ( vet to come) and his brother's. 



double his money was to go with me and 

 play the races. He agreed. We had one 

 continual streak of hard luck from the start. 

 Finally, 1 heard of a good thing that was 

 l.(« iked to come off at a track some 500 miles 

 away, and we went to get some of the coin. 

 1 got him to draw $20,000 from the bank. 

 We played it all on the race and lost. That 

 night we had a room with two beds in it, 

 and what was my amazement along in the 

 night to be aroused by my friend shaking 

 me, and as I sat up he said : 'This is too darn 

 tough for me ; I'm going to quit both you 

 and the horses.' I had made him speak !" 



All present let a roar of laughter out as 

 the "Senator" finished, and the proprietor of 

 the place was so amused that he turned to 

 the group and said: "Boys, I'll buy on that 

 story." 



"There," quickly remarked the "Senator," 

 "now I've made another man speak, too." 



HE MADE TWO MEN SPEAK 



One of the best known characters in 

 former years of the Eastern tracks was a 

 chocolate colored individual known to all as 

 "Senator" Bennett. He hailed from the 

 State of Virginia, but at one time and an- 

 other has visited all of the prominent track- 

 in the country. < )ne evening he dropped 

 into a popular turf resort in Boston, and was 

 telling what hard luck he had had that year 

 with the ponies. "Why," declared he, "it 

 almost equals the season that I took out a 

 negro friend of mine and we never turned a 

 winning trick." Several at once asked for 

 the truth of the occurrence. 



"Well," said the "Senator," "I'll tell you 

 how it happened. This friend of mine came 

 into a fortune of $100,000 through the death 

 of his father. He was deaf and dumb, yet I 

 had been with him so much that I could 

 work the finger language like an old veteran. 

 So I fingfered out to him that the wav to 



FRANK HOWE KIDS ENGLISH- 

 MAN 



Murray Howe, at one time secretary of 

 the Memphis race track, had a brother 

 Frank, who was noted as a practical joker. 

 Murray tells a story about his playful 

 brother. Seated with a group of horsemen 

 was an Englishman named Lake. He was 

 a person of wealth and had been entertaining 

 the party with accounts of his hunting trips 

 in the Indian jungles, shooting tigers, etc. 

 Frank stood it for some time, and then 

 broke in, addressing his conversation to the 

 hero of the tiger episodes, as follows : 



"Your experiences in the jungles have in- 

 terested me greatly, and I hope that before 

 you return home you will find it possible 

 to accompany me on what I'm sure you will 

 find the most novel hunt of your life. I'll 

 take you to the Indian Territory and give 

 you an opportunity to shoot a few of our 

 American Indians. The sport is extremely 

 thrilling. You will never forget it to your 

 dying daw Just now is the close season and 

 the Indian agents keep a sharp eye out 

 that no one shoots more than two in a sin- 

 gle month. October is the open month 

 when one can shoot as many as he can find 

 Though it was the close season last month, I 

 shot three — one more than the law allows. I 

 had to sneak the extra one out. Last Oc- 

 tober I got thirteen of them before dinner in 

 one day." 



The Englishman said that he had read a 

 lot about the Indians and the agents. Ar- 

 rangements were then and there made he- 

 tween the two for an Indian hunt the next 

 October. 



