THE ARABIAN HORSE. 43 



ards said he considered them both inferior specimens, coming 

 far short in style and quality of the best specimens of this 

 breed as he found them at home. 



It is exceedingly difficult and expensive to obtain good 

 specimens; it is with great difficulty that the Sultan, even, 

 obtains pure Arabs of the best families. 



In 1891, Thomas W. Palmer, a Detroit, Mich., capitalist, 

 conceived the idea of importing Arabian horses for the purpose 

 of infusing new blood in his Percheron stud ; consequently he 

 sent a trusted agent to Damascus for the purpose of obtaining 

 some of the best specimens of that country for this purpose, 

 but the difficulty, amounting, it is said, to impossibility of ob- 

 taining what he desired, compelled him to abandon his project. 

 . And now, when it is announced through our daily papers 

 that the Arab horses shown at the Midway Plaisance, con- 

 nected with the World's Fair of 1893, were an exhibit of the 

 Turkish government, and by that government permitted to be 

 sold by the sheriff, it is too ridiculous ; yet it may be believed 

 by the masses, "because in the papers." In after years some 

 of the descendants of this motley collection may lay claim to 

 royalty. 



