RECOLLECTIONS OF MEN AND HORSES 



on the refusal of the latter to record a pedigree or 

 acknowledge a record." The capital stock was fixed 

 at $10,000, " to be increased if deemed advisable," 

 and the incorporators were Edwin Thorne, David 

 Bonner, Shepherd F. Knapp, James B. Houston, and 

 Henry C. McDowell. J. H. Wallace stopped blus- 

 tering when this prospectus was issued, and appealed 

 to his friends to protect him from ruin. He prom- 

 ised to be good, and, through liberal play on the 

 chords of sympathy, the project was abandoned. 



I have numerous letters from Major McDowell, 

 but will content myself by making quotations from 

 three written during the year 1886: 



January 2. "I only consented to act in the Na- 

 tional Trotting Association until I could get a suit- 

 able representative from this section. Major P. P. 

 Johnston has consented to relieve me, and has been 

 appointed in my place on the Rule Committee. He 

 is a first-rate man, made a good legislator, and has 

 plenty of grit. I shall endeavor to secure proxies 

 from Kentucky and Tennessee for him. Bemis has 

 applied for all the proxies out here. Major Johnston 

 knows Bemis and Hall as well as I do, and he can be 

 relied on when it comes to a fight with them." 



January 31. " I am glad to see that you have 

 taken up the cudgels so strenuously for a drive in 

 Central Park. That it should be granted is a plain 

 matter of right, and agitation is the way to secure 

 it. That so influential a class as the road drivers 

 of New York City should be deprived of this equi- 

 table privilege is hardly conceivable." 



158 



