


his material services, will thank this gentleman for his 
efforts, and heartily second them. In the Formsr AND 
SrreaM he will find an earnest coadjutor. After reviewing 
the efforts within the current year of the National Associ- 
ation, of which Amasa Sprague, of Providence, is Presi- 
dent, and of the Trainer’s and Driver's Protective Associ- 
atiou, to improve the management of the turf, he makes 
the following just strictures upon the evil of pool-selling, 
which he properly regards as the great curse of the course. 
He says:— 
“Tt weighs like an incubus on the turf. It affords the 
straight-laced an opportunity to declare that the chief end 
and aim of racing is gambling. It brings a noisy and un- 
clean class into prominence. The chronic rogue and the 
brazen-faced swindler are inveterate pool-buyers. The 
sharpers combine to fleece the unsuspecting public whenever 
they can. They tamper with the horses and the drivers, 
and hesitate at nothing to accomplish their designs. The 
pool-box is responsible for three-fourths of the frauds which 
take place on the turf. The largest breeders and owners of 
horses do not haunt the pool-stand. Asa rule, our most 
eminent breeders are not betting men. The men most bene- 
fitted by pool-selling are sharpers, who make a’ business of 
following the horses from meeting to meeting. So long as 
pool-gambling is made a prominent and an offensive feature 
of the course, there are thousands of people of religious 
training who have a natural fondness for fast horseflesh, 
who will object to going themselves or to taking their fami- 
lies to view the races. We should enjoy sport for sport’s 
sake, and not make it subservient toa gambling interest. 
The faint roar of the revolution, Iam pleased to write, is 
licard. There is a strong movement to do away with the 
pool-stand, and as this movement is gaining strength all the 
while, its final success seems to be but a question of the 
future.” 
The same writer specifies the most prominent Trotting 
Parks in the country, which are the Buffalo, at Buffalo; 
Narragansett, at Providence, R. I.; Prospect, near Brook- 
lyn; Fleetwood, near New York; Hamden, at Springfield, 
Mass.; Dexter, Chicago; Utica, at Utica, N. Y.; Herdic, 
at Williamsport, Penn.: Point Breeze, at Philadelphia, 
Beacon, at Boston, and the Buckeye, at Cincinati. Al- 
most every important town in the Northern States has 
its trotting course. In the Southern States the trotting 
course is not so popular, running races being more largely 
patronized there. 
He also names the following celebrated breeding farms: 
Stonyford, in Orange county; Waldberg, near Haverstraw, 
on the Hudson; Thorndale, in Dutchess county; Spring 
Hill near Flushing, Long Island; The Home Farm, near 
Boston; Fairview, Woodburn, and Forest Park, in Ken- 
tucky. Tke strength of the prominent breeding establish- 
ments, averages from eighty to one hundred and twenty- 
five head of horses. At Waldberg as well as Stonyford the 
animals number 200. With from thirty to fifty brood mares 
constantly producing, the stables and paddocks would 
overflow were not the ranks thinned out by annual sales. 
Mr. Busby’s account of the long and fierce rivalry of My. 
Bonner and Mr. Vanderbilt is interesting. This rivalry be- 
gan some fifteen years ago. 
Whenever a promising horse was heard of the agents of Bon- 
ner and Vanderbilt were after him without delay. Mr. Bon- 
ner was the most wide-awake, and then he had the pluck 
to pay all sorts of prices. His first great triumph was in 
purchasing the celebrated Lantern. Next he purchased 
Lady Woodruff for the sum of $3,300, the Lady and Lan- 
tern making a team hard to beat. Flatbush Maid was the 
next acquisition, the price paid for her being $4,000. Lady 
Palmer was the fourth purchase, Mr. Bonner giving his 
check for $5,000 for her. He had now two unrivaled double 
teams. Commodore Vandervilt was not idle all this while. 
He sought for good horses but was not as successful as the 
newspaper man in making acquisitions to his stable. The 
’ Commodore nevertheless boldly asserted that he was ready 
at any time to match his team against Mr. Bonner’s for 
$10,000 a side, owners to drive. But Mr. Bonner, although 
passionately fond of fast horses, would not bet or trot for 
money. He had conscientious scruples against anything 
that looked like gambling; and no taunts could drive him 
from his position. In August, 1362, he drove over to the 
Fashion Course, with Flatbush Maid and Lady Palmer. It 
was a public race-day, and the grand stand was full of 
people. Among those present was Commodore Vanderbilt. 
Mr. Bonner determined to prove to his rival the mettle of 
his pair. He drove on the track. and requested several 
gentlemen, the Commodore especially, to hold their watches 
while he made a trial. The challenge was immediately 
accepted. The mares started at the word, and they trotted 
with remarkable steadiness, finishing two miles without 
skip or break in the unparalled time of 5:014, the last mile 
was done in 2:28% It was a great performance, and 
very naturally Mr. Bonner was much elated. On re- 
tarning to the judges stand with his horses he stood’ 
up in his wagon and proclaiming to the hearing 
of all that while it was arule with him never to make 
a bet, he would present $10,000 as a gift to any gentleman 
who owned a team if he would drive them in the time just 
recorded by Lady Palmer and Flatbush Maid. Everybody 
knew that this was meant for Vanderbilt, and it readily can 
be imagined that the challenge was not calculated to act as 
oil poured on troubled water. It excited the Commodore, 
and made the rivalry more intense. The years went by, 
and Vanderbilt made a bold attempt to turn the Ledger flank 
by purchasing the famous Mountain Boy. Bonner rose equal 
to the occasion. He purchased Dexter, and was invincible. 
Finding that the Commodore thought so much of Mountain 
Boy, Bonner took his rival by surprise in the perchase of 
Edward Everett, the sire of Vanderbilt’s horse. The Led- 
ger man now blandly smiled when he. explained that he 
owned the stalion which begot the horse which the Com- 
‘mode claimed was the best in the world. It cost Mr. Bon- 
ner twenty thousand dollars to indulge in this pleasant 
little boast. WVauderbilt has given up the fight at last. He 
still takes pleasure in driving on the road, but his Mountain 
Boy is dead, and the blood of theold man is tamer than it 
once was. 
We quote from the New York Tribune this sketch of a 
Kentucky horseman and a medium: 
- ‘Some years ago it seems that Mr. McGrath got quite in- 
FOREST AND STREAM, 

terested in spiritualism. There wasn’t much racing¥going 
on, so he could give the subject his undivided attention. He 
invited a friend to go with him and see Foster—or some 
other circulating medium—and my friend went. But he told 
me that it surprised him very much to see Mr. McGrath slip 
a full deck of cards in his coat pocket before starting. I 
scarcely seemed possible that Mr. McGrath intended to pro- 
pose a game of spiritual seven-up, or to attempt to beat 
some unhappy ghost out of every rap he had at draw- 
poker—which is supposed to be an emphatically bluc-grass 
game. Well, away they sailed, and found Foster in. I 
found him out at once, immediately after finding him in. 
Foster gave them his usual circus, and Mr. MeGrath sat it 
through insolemn awe and silence. Sometimes a shade of 
impatience was visible, but his face looked radiant at the con- 
clusion, ‘My. Foster,’ he said, as he laid the usual honora- 
tium down of the table, ‘this is wonderful, and you deal a 
square game, you do, I believe. But there’s just one thing 
more | want you to try, andif you do it, and 1 don’t give you 
just the best farm in Kentucky, my name ain’t Price Me- 
Grath,’and down went his hands into his coat pocket and 
out he fished the pack of cards. ‘There,’ giving them a 
scientific blue-grass shuffle, and slapping them down on the 
table backs up. ‘You just tell me what the first card is 
without turning it over; and his breath came slow in expec- 
tation, Price McGrath’s did. Foster couldn’t, and Mr. Mc- 
Grath turned sadly away, leaving the cards behind him in 
his bitter disappointment. ‘If Foster could just a-told me 
what that card was,’ he said to my friend as they slowly 
walked up Broadway, ‘ I’d just made our everlasting fortune. 
Td a-taken him with me, and we'd a-busted every faro 
bank in the country. And then if I wouldn’t a-made their 
hair curl at Baden-Baden and Moneco, V’ll be Dee-Deed.’ 
Mr. McGrath always says he’ll be Dee-Deed when he feels 
solemn and wants to round a sentence handsomely. 
Military Jews. 
The news from the army this week is almost entirely sav- 
age in character, and those in sympathy with the Peace 
Commission policy will now perhaps see their error. The 
month of August has been one series of Indian fights, and 
the fate of the Modocs, and the utmost exertions of the 
Peace Commissioners have not in the least interfered with 
the sportive nature of our savage friends. There is one 
consolation, however, a few have been laid ‘‘lo,” but not 
altogether by the hand or arms of the army, but by those of 
their own kind, as witnessed in the desperate fight between 
the Sioux and Pawnee tribes, which took place the first of 
the month within one hundred and twenty miles of the city 
of Grand Island, Nebraska. These two tribes have long 
been bitter in their hatred, and the younger portion of the 
Sioux tribe have patiently waited an opportunity to “‘ get 
even” with the Pawnees, and were this time anxious to be 
on the offensive, Therefore, when, on the morning of the 
2d of August, a Sioux Indian scout came into camp and re- 
ported the Pawnees as camping on the Ree fork of the Re- 
publican river, the Sioux camp became greatly excited, and 
“Little Wound” asked the Indian agent in charge if he 
had any orders which would interfere with his attacking 
them, and was informed that he had not. The Indian agent 
endeavored to pacify the excited Sioux, and offered to go 
with him and see the Pawnees, but to no purpose. The 
young men of the Sioux tribe considering that now was the 
‘“accepted tlme,” while the Pawnees were off their reserva- 
tion and away from:white men. The following morning 
the Sioux warriors started for the camp of their adversary, 
which they reached in two days, meanwhile being joined 
by the Brules. On the morning of the 4th they made a des- 
perate attack on the Pawnee camp, killing between fifty 
and one hundred, mainly women and children. At the 
time of the attack the greater part of the Pawnee men were 
absent hunting, so that despite a brave resistance, the Paw- 
nees were overpowered, the attacking tribe numbering be- 
tween five and six hundred. This fight was a perfect 
slaughter of Indian innocents, and will be the means of 
destroying the peaceful overtures made by the Government 
agents, a council of the chiefs having been arrranged to 
convene this fall to establish a permanent peace between 
the two tribes. The Pawnees were on their annual hunt on 
the waters of the Republican, and had killed many buffalo. 
and secured much game. But the return of the huntsmen 
was made sad by the destruction of their camp and the kill- 
ing of their squaws and papooses who were thrown in heaps 
and in some instances burned. The fight was thoroughly 
Indian in its savage nature, and we trust the ‘‘ young men” 
of the Sioux persuasion are now ‘‘ square” with their old 
foe. This fight, however, and its ruthless character, has 
aroused the worse feelings of ‘the Pawnees, who probably 
before this have planned an attack on the Sioux tribe. Our 
troops in almost every direction find the Indians as usual 
thieving and treacl G.1s and without the least idea of ever 
keeping their promises. The attempt to secure a notorious 
thief and murderer named Sancha, of the Southern Apache 
tribe, in New Mexico, by Captain Chilson’s command, of 
the Eighth Cavalry, was recently resisted, although the chief 
had promised to aid in his arrest. But when the Indian 
agent attempted to take him at the reservation, he was sur- 
rounded by about thirty Indians, and the chief refused to 
allow his arrest. The Apaches then talked ‘“‘ much” fight 
to the soldiers, but the little squad, valuing their hair too 
highly, refused. 
These very Indians are supported in idleness by the Gov- 
ernment, furnished food, clothes, etc., and at the same time 
are allowed to steal and murder, while off the reservation, at 
will. The Government is at the expense of keeping troops 
all over the Indian country, who, when they are not fight- 
ing, are largely used in protecting those who wish to ‘‘talk,” 
or hold a council with the savages whose promises are mere 
Our army is small, it is true, but we would 




ropes of sand. 

— 
or 


not actually require one half as large, were it not for the 
constant depredations of the great American Indian. 
General Irving McDowell, the intelligent commander of 
the Department of the South, is at present sojourning at 
Newport, where his family has a cottage. Few oflicers of the 
army are more generallyjrespected than the first commander 
of the army of the Potomac. It was a glorions and a well 
deserved tribute when, some few years since, his comrades 
at the meeting of the Army of the Potomac Association 
relieved him from all responsibility for the defeat of that 
army at the first Bull Run. 
The social intercourse between the officers of the United 
States service and those of England is more cordial than 
any other nations. Why should it not be so? Do they not 
speak our own tongue, is not England the ‘tmother coun- 
try,” even if we are termed ‘‘American cousins.” 
First Lieutenant Asa Bird Gardner,of the First Artillery, 
has been appointed a Judge Advocate of the army, vice 
Major and Brevet Lt. Colonel De Witt Clinton, who died at 
St. Paul, Minn., August 13. Maj. Gardner at the time of the 
appointment was acting as aid on the staff of the commander 
of the Division and Department of the South, and has filled 
most acceptably recently the position of Acting Assistant 
Adjutant General of the Division. During his service in 
the army since 1868, his time has been mainly devoted to 
the duties of the judge advocate’s office, and in numerous 
instances his superior knowledge of military law in all its 
branches has brought him in contact with, and in defense 
of, important governmental cases. His services are inval- 
uable to the Government and the army, and the promotion 
to the rank, and particularly the pay of a Major of Cavalry 
is very acceptable in these dull times. It would have taken 
Major Gardner perhaps twenty-five years to have attained 
this rank by way of regular promotion. 
Early in the winter the War Department will issue a 
revised edition of Upton’s Tactics, as prepared by the board 
appointed some time since. Tie new tactics will combine 
the movements of the three arms of the service, and will 
undoubtedly be the newest military thing out. 
‘Probably most of the West Point graduates know the 
returned bugler Benz, a German who has been in ser- 
vice at the Academy for the past forty years, and is 
therefore known by nearly every officer in the army, as his 
position, that of cadet bugler has brought him in contact 
with nearly every cadet who has been at the Academy dur- 
ing this period. A great many stories are related of Benz’s 
experience with the cadets, among them the following: 
When President Grant was a cadet at the Academy, learn 
ing the art of war, he one day sent Benz to the store to 
purchase fifty cents worth of Cavendish. Benz, however, 
in his haste did not hear correctly, but thought the order 
was candies, and accordingly invested the fifty cents in the 
toothsome article. On returning and handing over his 
purchase to Grant, the latter became angry at the ridicu- 
lous mistake and spoke rather sharply to Benz, who in turn 
feeling his old age insulted replied, ‘‘I don’t doubt but 
what you will be President of the United States yet if you 
keep on.” Grant turned at once towards Benz and laugh- 
ingly said, ‘‘ Well Benz, if Ido I shall appoint you my Secre- 
tary of War.” Doubtless the cadets who were standing 
near at the time this occurred well remember the incident. 
Events have shown, however, that President Grant has 
failed to fulfill his promise, and Benz of course has always 
been too modest to even ask for the appointment, thinking 
no doubt, that blowing his own bugle is much better than 
running the War Department. 
Whenever General Sherman visits the Academy, he 
always has a kindly word for the old man, and has many 
times offered him a better position, but Benz would rather 
pass his remaining days where he passed his youth. He 
still blows the bugle, almost as well he did forty years ago. 
The battalions of the Eighth and Ninth Infantry, with 
the Yellowstone expedition, have been ordered to be re- 
leived. Company ©, Sixth Infantry, was also ordered to 
be relieved and to return and be posted at Fort Buford. 
Captain Anson Mills, of the Third Cavalry, escorting the 
Yale College exploring party under Prof. Marsh, in Ne- 
braska, at latest report had not met with any Indians and 
did not anticipate any trouble. They had no desire to make 
the acquaintance of Mr. Lo! 
The Tenth Cavalry has some highly colored stories to 
relate regarding its adventures in Texas and the Indian 
country. 
Lt. Col. A. Montgomery, D. Q. M. G., is to be relieved 
from duty at headquarters of the Military Division of the 
East, New York, and will take Post No. 30, in the Depart- 
ment of Arizona, as Chief Quartermaster. 
Colonel Orlando B. Willcox, of the Twelfth Infantry, 
has been detailed to assume control of the general recruiting 
depot, New York city. 
Second Lt. Gilbert P. Colton, of the First Artillery, has 
been detailed as Professor of Military Science and Tactics 
at. the Pennsylvania Military Academy, Chester, Pa. The 
First Artillery contains many of the ‘shining lights” of 
the service. 

The oldest American skull is one found at New Madrid, 
Missouri, and it must have belonged to a contemporary of 
the mound diggers. It came from a depth of thirty feet 
below the surface of a mound, on which were growing the 
oldest trees of the primitive forest. Nearit were discovered 
the relics of a mastodon. Anthropologists have decided 
that it must have belonged to a very beautiful woman, 
