Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1893-06-09
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
WHAT HE WROTE ABOUT HORSES FORTY
YEARS AGO.

YEARS AGO.
In that famous work, 1.-The Autocrat
of the Breakfast Table," appears the
following:
l love my country and I love horses.
Stubbs old mezzotint of Eclipse hangs
over my desk, and Herrng's portrait of
Plenipotentiary-wh saw run at Ep-
sOm-over my fireplace. Did l not elope
from school to see Revenge and Pros
pect and Little John and Peacemaker
run over the race-course where now yon
suburban village flourishes, in the year
eighteen hundred and ever-so-few?
Though have never owned horse,
have not been the proprietor of six
equine females, of which one was the
prettiest little "Morgin'' that ever step
ped. Listen, then, to an opinion | have
often expressed long before this venture
of ours in England. (Horse-racing is
not republican institutions; horse-trot-
ing isl Only very few rich persons
can keep race-horses, and everybody
knows they are kept mainly as gamb-
ling implements. All that matter about
blood and speed we don't discuss; we I'M
derstand all that; useful, very, of course.
great obligations to the Godolphin
"Arabian,n and the rest. | say racing
horses are essentially gambling imple-
ments, as much as roulette tables.) Now,
l am not preaching at this moment: |
may read you one of my sermons some
other morning; but | maintain that
gambling on the great scale is not repub-
lcan. 1t belongs to phases of society,
a cankerel DECENTRALIZATION, such as
exists in rich aristocracies and the reck-
less life of borderers and adventures, or
the semi-barbarism OF a civilization re-
solved into its primitive elements. Real
republcanism is stern and severe, its es-
sence is not in forms of government, but
in the omnipotence of public opinion
that grows out of it. This public opinion
cannot prevent gambling with dice or
stocks, but it can and does compel 1t to
keep comparatively quiet. But horse
racing is the most public way of gambl-
ing, and with all It's immense attractions
to the sense and feelings-to which
plead very susceptible-the disguise is
too thin that covers it, and everybody
knows what it means. Its supporters
are the Southern gentry-fne fellows,
no doubt, but not republicans exactly,
as we understand the term-a few Nor
them millionaires more or less thorough.
ly millioned, who do not represent the
real people, and the mob of sporting
men, the best of whom are commonly
idlers, and the worst very bad neighbors
to stand near one in a crowd or to NEE
in a dark alley. In England, on the
other hand. with Its aristocratic institu.
tions, racing is a natural growth enough
the passion for it spreads downward;
through all classes, from the queen tC
the costermonger. London is like q
shelled corn-cob on the Derby day, anG
there Is not a clerk who could raise the
money to hire saddle with an old ha cl
under it that can sit down on his Office
stool the next day without wncing.
Now just compare the racer with the
trotter for a moment. The racer Incl
IDENTIFY useful, but essentially something
to bet upon, as much as the thimble
riggers's "little joker" The trotter Il
essentially and daily useful, and only
incidentally tool for sporting men.
What better reason do you want fo
the fact that the racer is most cultivated
and reaches his greatest perfection II
England, and the trottlng horses o
America beat the world? And why
should we have expected that the plcl
if it was the pick-of our few and far
between racing stables should beat TIN
pick of England and France? Throw
over the fallacious time test, and Their
was nothing to show for 1t but patri
otto feeling which we all have, with
Thoroughly provincial conceit, which SOM
of US must plead guilty to.