588 
liejjort on the Horses Exhibited at Windsor. 
of the propinquity to Scotland; while at Battersea, in 1862, 
the show of Clydesdales was so good that seven years later it 
was referred to in these words : " The Clydesdales (at Man- 
chester) only made one third of those at Battersea." But 
between 1862 and 1869 the catalogues knew no Clydesdale class, 
except in 1861, when, the Show being again held in the North 
(Newcastle), Clydesdale classes were introduced. Plymouth, 
in 1865, was too far west for the Scottish breeder; Buiy St. 
Edmunds was busy encouraging SufFolks ; Manchester, however, 
was the turning-point, and since 1869 the Clydesdales have had 
classes to themselves. The breeders have not been slow to 
prove that they appreciated the distinction, for the class lias 
gone on improving ; and the most captious critic would hesitate 
before he asserted that the Clydesdales at Windsor, taken as a 
whole, were not worthy of the occasion. 
As in the case of most other breeds of horses, the origin of 
the Clydesdale is a matter of some uncertainty. In the distant 
past he certainly was not the massive and majestic animal we 
now look upon ; the modern Clydesdale is a manufactured 
article of comparatively recent date.. In his recent work. The 
North Countree, to which allusion has already been made, Mr. 
W. Scarth Dixon promulgates the theory that the Cleveland 
bay is descended from the admixture of Eastern blood, during 
the time ©f the Eoman occupation of Britain, with the native 
mares ; and the author further states that a legion of the Cres- 
pinian horse was stationed at Danum, the modern Doncaster, 
the members of which were mounted on horses obtained from 
Carthage. The Devonshire packhorse — those sturdy useful 
horses which performed the duties of carriers' carts over the 
rugged roads and across the moors, and in whose interest some 
of the queer little bridges found in the "west countree" were 
built — bore a very strong resemblance to the Cleveland bay, 
except that his legs were white instead of black; but this was 
also a peculiarity of the now extinct Northumberland chapman 
hoi'se. 
" Stonehenge," in his book on The Horse, says that the 
Clydesdale is supposed to have sprung from the Flemish horse, 
crossed with the descendants of the packhorses, which were 
retained in use longer in the north than in the south. Con- 
sequently there may be some ground for thinking that the 
ancestors of the Clydesdale were of the packhorse stamp. Safe, 
free action was another characteristic feature of the packhorse, 
as it also was of the early Clydesdale, who has furthermore been 
described by an authority as a smallish horse, with capital legs 
and feet, and not the best of shoulders, which were rather low. 
