Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1896-03-20

whose Dams were uUkuOWus lN-uaN
thanks to my own researches in the mat
ter and the kind efforts of correspond
ents, | am able to claim everything in
the ark, including Noah and his wife,
except the stately giraflP-the leggy
star-gazer of the troplcs-and Shem or
Sham. the colored son of the old proprie-
tor. would have claimed the giraffe
long ago. had not my telescope been out
of fix. while have always been ready
to admit that the very etymologv of
Shams name would indicate that he is
of trotting origin. But
Oars one mo- rlber to cross
Oars one mo- riber to cross.
saws de ant to de elephant.
t''Who am you shovin';"
Oars one mo river to cross.
EXceptng the giraffe, then, had them
all-everything from Dan to Beersheba;
from the rise of the Syrian empire to the
downfall of Rome; from the frieze over
the Pantheon to the second dam of Joe
Patchen!
But O. reader, you cannot know how
/ it narrowed my very soul to work week
after week and know the giraffe was not
with u.-to observe this glorious pos
sibilty of pacing greatness almost with
in my grasp and yet not one of US. The
giraffe. that animal of all others, which.
from hi stargaziug foretop to his match
less pacing rump, was so evidently liz
tended by nature 10 be the daddy of all
the PAGERS, And as | went deeper into
the subject and thought out the glorious
possibilities. the unborn lead-pipe cnches
! lying dormant in cross of that match
/ less neck on the bullcrested descendants
of the old-time PAGERS. | have groaned in
the very anguish of my despair. In my
of the future and seen some worthy
descendant of this cross come ambling
along in the back stretch, wholly lndif-
ferent and uncOncerned that the flying
field was all before him and almost at
the wire. Utterly oblivious to the fact
that the red flag was about to be flashed
in his front-fOr it could not be flashed
in his face-he calmly measures the dis
lance. and when the others are almost at
the wire. he suddenly lowers to hori-
zontal line the head which but second
ago was towering in the clouds near the
last eighth-and the money is yourn !.
When we consider the uuwritten law of
racing, that every race is lost by a horse
whose neck is too short, we can grasp
some idea OF what the pacing world has
lost. Moses on Mount Nebo was not in
it: Bonaparte struggling aimlessly along
in the darkness of the night after Water
loo is but hollow mockery compared to
it. Darwin with his feet braced upon
the highest peak of the Chmborazo
above the clouds, and graspng the tail
of the missing link in a life and death
effort to pull the animal unto himself,
only to feel the tail pop and the animal
fall back into an abyss while he himself
falls on that portion of his anatomy so
suitable for such falls, is a faint idea of
what | have suffered in this hopeless
effort to drive the giraffe into the pacing
corral.
To-day, the cup of my joy is full. Tn
known to me, an esteemed cores pOndent
in the far-oil State of New York. and the
town of Nashville. had also been inves-
tigating the subject. lie, too, no doubt
has been narrowed with this keen dis
appointment and has been quietly
at work to help me out, as the let
ter below will show. Like all great
discoveries, he is modest, and desires me
to withhold his name, which | promise
to do until Fame comes proudly along
and demands that give it up. But here
is the letter that filled me with Joy: II
TROTWOOD: In the Encyclopedia
Britannica. published by the Werner
company, Chicago, in 1894, in an article
describing the giraffe You will find the
following on page go, Vol. Y, seven
teenth line from top of page, second
column: sit is Il fleet, though by no
means graceful, runner, its awkward,
stumbling gait being due to its moving
the fore and hind legs of the same side
simultaneously. Now. as a student of
the PAGER, and also of your department
in the Horse Review, | would like to
know if the Britannica is right, and if
such gait can be called runncr?"
o student of the PAGER and also of this
department, you have lifted the load and
Joy shines in every crevice! Is the
Britannica right? Heaven bless you
Yes, yes, yes, Ask Flying Jib, Is the
PAGER not also runner. Ask the
silent man in whose ears the whistling
wind has sung the sweet song of 2:0l3,
If he didn't kind o think the little horse
he was driving was running away at the
pace.
~IIeaven bless you, dear sir, for that
seeminglyginsignificant question. You
are like the man who shot at the cat and