PILOT 277 



able time for commencing such a search. I could name several within a hun- 

 dred miles of here ; but none of them is of the very first water ; they would 

 come under this general description : 



' ' The price of the pacer in York might be 

 From one and a half to hundreds three; 

 Proportioned well in height he stands, 

 Fourteen and a half to fifteen hands. ' 

 His color good, a black or gray, 

 A roan or chestnut, brown or bay ; 

 Young, sound and kind boss never licked him ; 

 At speed, you'd think the devil kicked him'. 



"Some twenty miles above Sorel, on the very shore of the St. Lawrence, 

 where some peculiar current causes the presence of glare ice in the winter' 

 lives Monsieur Louis Dansereau, who for half his lifetime has possessed a 

 family of black pacers that take to speed at their first harnessing, like young 

 ducks to the water. The old man shows some gay pompons, or ornaments, 

 which have been publicly placed to grace the heads of several of his horses,' 

 in addition to more substantial gratification for himself, at various of our 

 winter races. One of his nags, some ten years since, then a recent winner 

 at Montreal, in 2 .-44, was purchased at two hundred dollars by a Canadian, 

 on his return from Illinois, whither, having gone as a common boatman, he 

 had by industry and judicious purchase of land become independent. The 

 horse was kept two or three years at Grand Maska, before mentioned, where 

 his colts, now at maturity, are great favorites. Poor Pappillon ! He gave 

 me a brisk ride on the ice one Sunday after mass ; but he has gone the way 

 of much good horse flesh. His owner, having returned to Illinois, sent back 

 for the horse, which was duly forwarded as far as Detroit, where the person in 

 charge of him, wishing to gratify some gentlemen with a view of his action, 

 set him to spinning in the street, ran foul of a shaft or the like : 



" ' And the good steed, his labors o'er, 



Stretched his stiff limbs to rise no more ! ' " 



From the "Spirit of the Times," 1841, Vol. XII, page 73: "At 

 the Chambly races on the ice (reported in the ' Spirit' of February 

 26th) the winner of the pacers' race was Mr. Dansereau's black horse, four 

 years old. Mr. Dansereau's black pacers are well and advantageously known 

 in French Canada. The gentleman obliged me with a relation of their origin 

 as follows : S 3me fifteen or twenty years since he swapped with a Yankee 

 teamster for an old black pacing mare, active but not very fleet. A neigh- 

 bor had procured such another American mare some years before which was 

 with foal, and her colt, being now a horse, was bred to Mr. Dansereau's old 

 mare, whose produce was a pacing filly that took to fast going with very little 

 discipline. This one he has kept and raised from her several fast pacers, 

 some of which after winning prizes he has sold at his stable door for two 

 hundred and two hundred and fifty dollars. His present horse is one of this 

 mare's colts. He has practiced inbreeding in the production of his stock, 

 and the consequence is a continuation of great speed with fine quiet tem- 

 per, without increase of size, though under good stable management, and 

 want of that heartiness to feed which is apt to result from crossing. He has 



