204 THE TT(>KSE, 



This done, the sum total of the ten miles does not amount 

 to 9h. 49m. |s., but to 9h. 49m. Nor is there the slightest clue 

 given to ascertain what has become of the 21 minutes said to be 

 lost when she was taken out of harness at the end of the fiftieth 

 mile, or of the otlier stops of lesser moment,* 



T]ie latter, it is true, might be amalgamated in the whole 

 time of the ten miles, but not so, possibly, the twenty-one minutes 

 in the time of the fifth ten miles, which are set down as done 

 in 56 minutes, from which, deducting twenty-one minutes, one 

 will have thirty-five minutes as the travelling time of ten miles, 

 after doing forty miles in seventeen minutes under four hours. 



The match M-as unquestionably done and won, for the bets 

 were lost and paid, and the judges were honorable men ; but 

 how it was done, or exactly in what time of actual trotting and 

 what of stoppage, the above table certainly does not show. I 

 did not discover the defect till I had transcribed it and begun 

 to verify it. Having done so, I do not withdraw it ; because 

 the specimen of the loose way in which matters of this sort 

 are done in quarters where one would least expect it, leads 

 liim to spare his wonder at the way the myths of Childers, 

 Eclipse, and the worthies of old, arose, when stop watches 

 scarcely were, and horses ran four miles straight away from 

 the starting to the winning post in a right line. 



They might be timed now by electric telegraph, but not even 

 now otherwise. 



The same is the cause of the prodigious fallacy in Tib Hin- 

 man's time at Ogdensburgh, and in Lady Kate's time at Chicago 

 — both pure myths ! Both matches were done on a straight 

 plane ; one man could not time the start and the finish unless 

 by telegraph. So the starting judge guessed when they got 

 home, and the placing judge guessed when they started, and, 

 when it was all over, the two judges compared notes and struck 

 an average. No fraud was intended, nor any hoax on tlie pub- 

 lic ; but it was one nevertheless, and, was at once detected, deceiv- 

 ing no one. 



It is impossible, however, to be too rigidly correct in the 

 recording of such details. How the errors in the above table 

 came, could probably, now^ be easily ascertained, so short a 

 time has elapsed. But had. a century flown since the trot was 



