160 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
The sport was to be sure severely condemned by all 
serious people, and no church-member could attend a 
horse race with impunity. Nevertheless horse racing 
sometimes claimed its victims among the very elect. 
There is a true story on this head recorded of one 
Deacon R., of Bennington, Vermont. The Deacon 
liked a good horse, and always had in his barn two 
or three animals that answered this description. In 
particular, about the year 1818, he owned one that 
was known to be a very fast runner; and so, when 
some wicked sporting men from New York came up 
to Bennington with a race horse which they offered 
to match against anything that could be produced in 
the town, the wicked Bennington boys bethought 
themselves of the Deacon’s horse. A match was 
made, to be run off secretly, in the dead of night, and 
one Martin Scott (who afterward became a gallant 
officer in the United States Army) was selected to 
borrow and ride Deacon R.’s runner. Accordingly, 
Martin Scott burglariously entered the stable at mid- 
night, muffled the animal’s feet, and quietly brought 
him out and rode him to the track. 
The race was over a mile course, and all went well 
till the home stretch was reached; then the Benning- 
ton horse fell back, and it looked as if the strangers 
would win. But at that moment the Deacon him- 
self, or his ghost, rose up behind the fence, and 
screamed aloud, “ Put the whip to him, Martin; put 
the whip to him, I tell you.” Martin, though seized 
with a great fear, retained sufficient presence of mind 
to follow these providential directions. He put the 
whip to his mount vigorously, and won the race by a 
head. Thereupon Deacon R. appeared on the track, 
