• THE PREJUDICE. 131 



was one that could do it at the beginning of the present half 

 centuiy. 



The only thing to be expected now of the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural Society, is, that it should exclude all women from 

 their grounds, who possess above a low average of good looks, 

 for fear the men should neglect looking at fat pigs, in view of 

 the superior attractions of fair women. 



It is too little to say, that such befogged and Bostonian enact- 

 ments are behind the spirit of the age ; are utterly unscientific, 

 unpractical, detrimental to the object which they profess to 

 encourage, and indicative of a low, prejudiced, one-sided, exclu- 

 sive and Pharisaical condition of the popular mind, where such 

 absurdities can be promulgated without calling forth general 

 reprobation, or awakening universal and inextinguishable ridi- 

 cule. 



The Pharisees have succeeded, one may say, for the excep- 

 tion scarcely exists to prove the rule, in abolishing trials of speed 

 among race-horses every where east of the Potomac, and north 

 of the Ohio Rivers. The consequence is, that they have all but 

 succeeded in abolishing the thoroughbred horse in the same 

 region ; and have brought it to pass, that in 1856 there are not 

 ten thoroughbred stallions of proved blood and tried powers — 

 indeed, not ten thoroughbred stallions, of any kind, serving 

 mares, where in 1826 there were fifty. 



It remains for two or three generations hence, to show whe- 

 ther the general stock of the countrjy- will have improved or 

 deteriorated, by the substitution of "Klorgan and Black Hawk 

 trotting stallions, with at most two or three-eighths of thorough 

 blood in their veins, and without size, length or room, for such 

 animals as Eclipse, Henry, Medoc, Mingo, Postboy, Leviathan, 

 Trustee, of later days ; or as King AVilliam, Messenger, Medley 

 and Wildair, in the brave times of old, when men did not 

 assume "it necessary, that because they were " virtuous," there 

 must needs be " no more cakes and ale." 



But it does need the lapse of generations to enable the expe- 

 rienced breeder, who takes proof and the tested wisdom of ages, 

 instead of new-fangled notions, for his guide, to foresee what the 

 effect will surely be. 



JSTor does it need a second-sighted eye, or a prophetic tongue, 



