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About The Loup City northwestern. (Loup City, Neb.) 189?-1917 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 27, 1903)
Evolution of the Trotter How American Breeders in Fifty Years Have Brought to Perfec tion the Greatest and Most Useful Type of Horse tho Cunning of Man Has Yet Produced. * - - -- Great cations produce great, horses. The higher the civilization the purer are the equlue breeds. In the ancient as weit as the modern world this rule holds true, and the foremost raeps of men have always possessed the high est types of breeds of animal life. A stranger who witnessed light har ness sport, say. for the first time at Memphis recently, and who saw Lou Dillon trot in 1o8i&, Major Delmar In 1:59%, and Dan Patch pace In 1:5644. would naturally ask, how are those horses bred, and bow long has it taken to bring the breed to such perfect speed perfection9 He would be aston ished to learn that the breed did not exist half a century ago; that in 1845, 2:30 was thought to be the speed limit, and that trotting races were rare, while now the continent is studded with stock farms, with many millions invested; that about 1,500 meetings are held annually, at which 85,000,000 in stakes and purses are competed for, and that just as all countries go to England for the thor oughbred, so ail the civilized world comes to America for the trotter. As speed is the test of the progress of the breed, and the record at the wire the proof of quality and value, it I but he was then bought by the late Robert Bonner for $36,000 and at onct retired. Four years later that mosi wonderful of all trotting mares. Geld smith Maid, also driven by Budr Doble, went in 2:17. From year tc year she out down her time till, or Sept. 2. 1874. at Mystic Park. Boston when 17 years old. she placed the trotting record at 2:14. In those days the sulkies weighed seventy-five pounds, the tracks were not improved and Doble Is firmly of the opinion to day that the marvelous Maid, had she been on the track at the present time would have been a champion. Gold smith Maid was an “ir'ved." bein.s by Abdallah 15, a son of Hamble Ionian, while her dam was Ah, bv Abdallah 1. the sire of Hambletouian While the number of fast horses steadily increased and the stock farms were not only increasing their output but breeding more intelligently foi the great object in view’, the record was not again broken till Aug. 3. 1878 when John Splan. at Buffalo, trotted Rarus in 2:131 *. He was at once re tired, us Mr. Bonner bought him foi §35,000 and sent him to his stables, where he had previously sent Dexter. These sensational prices gave addi facturers of sulkies to conceive the idea that the small tire wheel woult get round turn quicker, and thai there would be far less resistance than with the old high wheels, witt steel tires. They were introduced ir 1892, and there was at once a startling reduction In time. Nancy Hanks who in 1891 had trotted in 2.09 with the old wheels, in 1892 in a grand series of performance's successively reduced her record to 2.04. She is by Happy Medium, dam Nancy Lee, by Dictator, both^if Hambletonian. Two years elapsed before there w-as any reduction, and then came to the front the beautiful and symmetrical mare, Alix, by long odds the greatest com bination of speed, proportion, style and quality which had yet appeared upon the trotting turf. After a grand racing career, in which she defeated ail comers, at Galesburg, 111., Sept. 19, 1891, she trotted In 2.03s4. For six years the battle was waged against time and every assault was a failure until the priests of finality declared that the time limit had been reached at last. The mares had cer tainly had a long reign, but with the new century the records began to gc with startling rapidity. The Abbot ———-----■ - — ■ ■ ■ ■■■ " ■ ■ I ■■■ 1—1 Match Race Between Ethan Allen and Mate and Dexter to High-Wheel Sulky. i will be of interest to note the develop ment from the date when the famous Irfidy Suffolk first trotted in 2:30 or better in 1845 to the present time, when the record is l:58Vs- On Oct. 13. 1845, the little gray mare Lady Suf folk, at the Beacon course, Holtoken, N. J., trotted in 2:29V&. Through her sire, Engineer, and the sire of her 1am, Don Quixote, she traced direct oack to Messenger. In 1849 Pelham, of unknown pedigree, reduced the rec ird to 2:28. He was a converted pacer, which shows that even at that early period the interchangeability of the gaits was understood. Highland Maid, another ex-pacer, in 1853 re duced the mark to 2:27. Then came the remarkable mare, Flora Temple, who, over the Union course. East New York, driven by that first great knight of the sulky, Hiram Woodruff, went under the wire in 2:24V*;. Flora Tem ple continued her victorious career till she, at Kalamazoo. Mich., on Oct. 15, 1859, trotted in 2:19%. being the first of her race to get below 2:20. tlonal impetus to the great breeding interests, and from that time on the record moved down rapidly. In 1879 St. Julion. by Volunteer, he by Ham bletonian, at Oatkland, Cal., went in 2:12%, and later reduced it to 2:11%. Then came that great queen of the trotting turf, Maud S., by Harold. Harold was by Hambletonian, dam Enchantress, by Abdallah 1, the sire of Hambletonian. On Aug. 12, 1880, at Rochester, N. Y., she trotted in 2:11%, and then went on to 2.10%, 2:10% and 2:1<>%, and the trotting world saw that 2:10 was in sight. Everybody looked for the great daugh ter of Harold to do it. But out of the west came the black whilrwind, Jay Eye-See, who at Providence, R. I., Aug. 1. 1884, placed the record at 2:10. Jay Eye-See was by Dictator (brother to Dexter, 2:17%). by Hambletonian. He was the monarch of a day. for at Cleveland on Aug. 2. Maud S. trotted in 2:')9%. and regained her throne. Her final triumph came a year later, when over the same track she cut the by Chimes, a grandson of Hambleton ian. on September 25, 1900, clipped half a second off the record, and a few months later, on July 20, 1901, at Cleveland, O., the mighty Cresceus the first stallion to win the world trotting record, shot under the wire in 2.02%. A week later, at Columbus, he cut it to 2.02%. When the season of 1903 opened even in the best informed circles there was not the slightest expectation of any reduction of the trotting record. Major Delrnar had a record of 2:06%. but no one saw in him a future cham pion. Lou Dillon was an unknown quantity. Her pedigree goes up to Hambletonian through Sidney Dillon and Happy Medium, though about 50 per cent of her pedigree is unknown as thoroughbred. At Readville. Mass., on August 24. she trotted in 2.00 and thus realized the dreams of the en tnusiasts who have predicted that time as the ultimate limit and perfec tion mark of the breed. This looked like glory enough for *. . I I- - I Ethan Allen and George M. Patchen in Skeleton Wagons. The record was hailed as the limit at the gait, while a few visionaries talked of a possible 2:10. while here and there was an enthusiast who talked of two minutes. In 1807 the brown gelding Ilexter, by Hambletoniau 10, dam Clara, by American Star, at Buffalo. N. Y., cut the record to 2:171i. He was driven by Budd Doble. then a young man and still on the turf in all the vigor of a green old age. Dexter at that time was nine years old and would in all probability have reduced his record, record down to 2:08%. Mr. \V. H. Vanderbilt had in the meantime sold her to Robert Bonner for $40,000, and she was duly retired. It has always been a universal regret that this great mare never had a foal. The last of the old high-wheel sulky champions was Sunol, who in 1891 over the kite track at Stockton, Cai.. went in 2:08%, and again Mr. Bonner’s desire to own champions was so great that he paid $41,000 for her. The marvelous speed achieved by bicyclists led horsemen and the manu Dexter, With Budd Dobie in the Saddle. ! one season, but in the meantime a | new star had appeared in the bay gelding Major Delmar, who had enter | ed the ring In a fight to a finish with j Father Time. Starting the season with a record of 2.06% in a series of brilliant performances he cut it down in sections till finally on Sept. 26, at the Empire City track, he went in 2.00 ; ar.d divided regal honors with Lou Dillon. Major Delmar belongs to the Electioneer-Wilkes branch of the trotting family. This looked like the climax, but na ture rarely stays Still. On October 20, at Wichita, Cresceus trotted in 1.59%, and Oct. 24, Lou Dillon regain ed her throne by trotting in 1.58%. The story of the trotter would be In complete without a note as to his value. The highest price ever paid for a trotter was $125,000, at which figure J. Malcolm Forbes bought the 2-year-old trotter Arlon, 2.10%, from the late Senator Leland Stanford. While a few thoroughbreds have been sold at a higher figure, this is still the high water mark for a 2-year-old of any breed. Axtell, 2.12, the cham pion three year-old stallion of his nmc, brought $105,000, and $150,000 was refused for his stable companion, AUerton, 2,09%. Mr. Smathers paid $40,000 for Major Delmar, a gelding. —“Dexter,” in the New York Simday Telegraph. ! NEBRASKA STATE NEWS PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. Student* Are Better Prepared for College. It has been currently reported this fall by instructors and others in the colleges and normal schools of Ne braska that nev<M- before in the history of the state have the members of the freshman classes been so well pre pared for their studies. The rumors interested. State Superintendent Fcnv lcr to such an extent that under date of October 24 he sent the following letter to the heads of the state uni versity, the state normal school, four of the leading colleges of the slate and the three largest normal schools: “The claim has been made that the students entering the colleges and nor mal schools of Nebraska this fall are better prepared for the work they are to, do in these institutions than ever before. This Is a matter of great in terest to me. am’. I would be pleased to receive from you at an early date an expression of your opinion. Are the matriculates of 1903-4 better pre pared to take up collegiate work in your institution than those of past years? In other words, does your in stitution not need to maintain as much preparatory or academic work this fail as in previous years for its freshmen classes? If this condition bo true, what conclusion do you draw from it?” TURKEYS ARE SCARCE. | Fremonters May Have to Eat Plain ( Chicken Thanksgiving. FREMONT—Fremonters may have to fall back on chickens this year for their Thanksgiving dinners, ' on ac count of the prices that are being asked for turkeys. Twenty cents a pound is what the dealers say they will have to charge. Too much wet weather during the summer is given as the cause of the dull condition in the turkey market. Many of the young fowls were drowned during the August and September floods, and even the older birds on some farms lo..* their lives. But the crop of chickens, ducks and geese is fully tip to the average. While the heavy raln3 were playing havoc with turkeys, they were just what pleased ducks and geese. These are practically as succulent and toothsome as turkeys, and will be sold at for mer prices, or about 12Vk cents a pound for young stuff. Thus it will be unnecessarv to cut out the Thanks giving dinner because the American bird has r.ot been able to withstand the Nebraska climate. Husks Corn for Wager. DAKOTA CITY—George Hirsch bach. the champion corn hnsker of this section, has wagered with an Iowa man that he can husk and crib 150 bushels of corn in ten hours. The contest will be pulled oft about Thanksgiving. Collision on the Elkhorn. VALENTINE-Train No. 6, oast bound on the Elkhorn. stopped at Crookston for water and a cattle train following crashed into the rear, smashing iho sleeper so ft had to bo left. Nobody was hurt, hut the pas sengers were badly frightened and shaken up. Looking Into Harbert Cace. LINCOLN—Governor Mickey has ordered an investigation In Lie ease of J. C. Harbert, fireman at the Kearney industrial school, who lias been arrest ed by the Beatrice police while in com pany with a young Beatrice girl who, upon being “scolded” by her mother for being too often with Harbert, knocked her parent down and choked her. Harbert has a wife at Kearney. If found guilty he wd'.l lie discharged from tlie employ of the state. Hay Stacks Burred. NELSON—A steam thresher en gine passing along the road by Frank Spurck's hay fields set fire to the grass and before it could be extin guished three large hay stacks, about thirty tons, had been consumed. Highwayman’s Victim Dead. RED CLOUD—John Anshutz, the farmer who was held up by a high wayman and shot near his home in Kansas, thirteen miles southwest ot here, died from his wounds. Safe in Bank Blown. LYONS—The safe in the First Na tionai bank here was blown at 2 o'clock in the morning, The robbers secured $2,000. of which $1,500 was in bills, $400 in gold and $100 in silver. The robbers were not spen by ary one. At the eastern edge of town they stole a team from the barn of E. II. Harendeen, a farmer, and drove east ward. The bank safe and all the furniture in the bank were utterly ruined. THE STATE AT LARGE. Charles F. Higgins of Omaha died suddenly in his chair while serving as a juror. The new’ union depot in Fremont will he 1 early for occupancy in De cember. For stealing four turkeys two men in Cass county were sentenced to im prisonment. for thirty days. Death is announced of H. A. Bur rill of Fremont, who had resideS there for twenty-five years. Near Decatur, Albert Fuller, a farm er boy, 17 years old, was dangerously hurt by the explosion of a gun while out hunting. Typhoid and scarlet fever are prev alent at Papillion. There have heen several fatalities from typhoid. School has been closed for a period. Washington dispatch: The senate in executive session confirmed the following nomination: Church Howe, Nebraska, consul general at Antwerp. Mr. and Mrs. George F. Norton o' Beatrice celebrated their sixtieth wed ding anniversary. They have been residents of that city for a great many years. The Clark Automatic Telephone company of Sioux City is putting in a rural telephone line to run out from Dakota City, covering a distance of about thirty miles. W. J. Dre3ser, the man who gave himself up to Sheriff Bauman of Dodge county, stating "hat he was an escaped convict from the Iowa state peniten tiary, was released. It was learned from the Iowa authorities that Dresser had been released on parole, but had violated the terras of his release. A young man by the nam° of Don aldson, living five miles southwest of Palmer, while in the field husking corn accidently discharged a gun with the muzzle towards him. The entire charge, after passing through the end gatc of the wagon box, lodged in his side. A favorable outcome is doubt ful. The jury in the case of Robert Wag ner vs. the city of Columbus returned a verdict awarding the plaintUT dam ages in the sura of $400. Wagner fell on a defective sidewalk last March and sued the city for $5,000. Judg ment was entered on the verdict and the amount will probably be paid with out any further litigation. On account of insufficient room to accommodate the new offices of clerk of the district court and assessor the commissioners of Sarpy county have decided to enlarge the court house. Burglars attempted early in the morning to enter the residence of Mrs. Ida Bell at York, but when they heard the many burglar alarm bells and saw the entire house immediately lighted from cellar to garret they de cam ped. John Crown, an aged resident of Te cumsoh, narrowly escaped losing his life under the wheels of a’ moving stock train. The train was doing some switching in the yards, and was backing down over the street cross ing when the old gentleman attempted to cross. The moving cars struck him in the back and knocked him down, nnd would have crossed over his body had it not been for the prompt action of F. A. Thiele, who happened to be standing near. An extra freight train, west bound, was wrecked on the Rock Island near Lewiston. Light cars left the track ami rolled down an embankment fifty feet high. The cars were loaded with coal, potatoes and lumber. Advices received by stockmen at the union stock yards in South Omaha are to the effect thaf no tariff legislation whatsoever, affecting western inter ests, will be accomplished this winter: This broad statement appears to in clude the Cuban treaty which western beet growing interests affirm will se riously damage the beet sugar Indus-' try in Colorado and Nebraska. Judge Baxter lias signed a decree in the foreclosure suit brought by Eliza B. Patrick on the home property of Former Senator John M. Thurston, •Thorwald,” at 24th and Farnam streets, Omaha. Suit was brought on a $12,000 mortgage, which with inter est amounts to $13,152.20. Judgment is rendered for that amount, but the defendant is given twenty days tn which to make payment, before the property will be ordered sold. One of the most prominent citizens and Grand Army men of Osceola met with a severe accident. He was trimming trees and in pulling down a limb while standing in a wagon h" frightened the horses and they ran. Mr. Pulver was thrown to the ground, striking on his head and shoulders. Mrs. Anna M. Ludeman has com menced suit against 'August Moeller, a saloon keeper at Goehner, and his bondsmen, for $5,000 for selling her husband liquor by which she says lie has been made an habitual drunkard. ..i ' ii—■— —| — PLANS THAT WENT WRONG. Showing How Hard It Is to Drive Folks Into Matrimony. Once upon a time, before everybody hart learned to attend strictly to his own alfafrs, a man and a maid were In love with each other, but, though this was patent to all their friends, neither of them knew It. However, their friends said unanimously: "We will demonstrate it to them and write a triumphant Q. IS. D. upon thojr wed' ding morn.” Therefore, the maid never was in vited anywhere that she did not And the man invited also; nor was the man invited anywhere but that he found the maid likewise a guest. Further more, the man always was detailed to take the maid In to dinner, and they could not so much as glance at each other without everybody else having an errand out of the room, and society became a vast manufactory of oppor tunities for them to revel in each other's company alone and undis turbed. Now. before this had time to become a habit with them, both the man and the maid penetrated the dark plot. Whereupon the maid tossed her head, saying: "They needn't think I have only one chance,” and immedi ately betrothed herself to an impeculi ous fortune hunter whose only rec ommendation was his title. And thereupon the man hastily mar ried himself to a grass widow from Chicago, whose reputation, they do say, was responsible for the big Are. Consequently all their friends nod ded their heads sagely, and whispered to each other, “Didn't 1 tell you so?”— Alex Iticketts In Philadelphia Hedger. Medieval Marconi. Several old writers mention mys terious methods of aerial communica tion, and Strada, an Italian antiquary who wrote during the IGth century, describes an invention having an ex traordinary resemblance to Sig. Mar coni’s present-day wonder. Strada says that two friends about to Le separated each procured a nee dle magnetized at the same odestone and affixed them to swing on dials marked with the letters of the alpha bet. They agreed that, at certain speci fied periods after they parted, each should retire into a private apartment with this apparatus; and thereafter, by directing the needle to the letters necessary to spell out their meaning, the pair were able to convey theii thoughts in an Instant to one another across the continent, as Strada puts it, “over cities or mountains, seas or deserts.” This, at the last, is an astonishing forecast, and may be a fact, for to ex pound such a scheme at that period was to chance being burnt as a sor cerer—a risk Strada would be un likely to run for mere fiction.—Stray Stories. A Song of Hope. Here’s a think I guess you hadn't Never thought; An’ if so, you hasn't been happy As you ought. It’s a thought to make you glad. For a feller '-an't be sad When he st-\- th' things a-comin’ That he's sought. This Is It; Th' furder on we Mortals go. All th’ brighter does th’ future's Promise grow. Some keeps harpin’ on th' past Wtshln’ childhood's joy might last— llain't got time fer any slch a Bunch o' woe. Ev'ry day since I been livin’ I have found Lots an' lots o’ hope an’ sunshine Scattered 'round. Life's brimful o’ love an' light If a feller lives It right— ; Always got th’ best time coinin’. I'll be bound. * ..JL;~. . I ain’t been along th' road as , , Pur as some. But she's kep' a-gltlln' better As I've come. 'Twill be better still next year Sure as I'm a-settin' here— Lo .ikin' hack I'll roi some mountain* 1 have dumb. t’hirk up. growler; light yer face up With a smile; Better walkin' on ahead there 'Bout a mile Keep a-singin’ songs o' hope, Never get around an' mope; l-’t tills life grows sweet an' sweeter All th’ while. Immense Piece of Building Stone. The largest and heaviest building stone ever quarried in England waa taken from the Plankington bed, neai Norwich. It was in one piece, without cracK or flaw, and weighed over thirty five tons. Swiss Hotels. There are now 2,000 hotels and pen sions in Switzerland, employing some thing like 35,000 persons during ths summer season. It is estimated that 380,000 people visit Switzerland in the season and spend about $25,000,00# there. Record Tea-Drinkera. The Australians are the greatest tea* drinkers in the world, annually con suming 7% pounds per head. In Engr land the consumption Is about 0% pounds per head, and In the United States only 1 pound 2 ounces. Long-Lived Horses. A good authority on horses says that the grey will live the longest, and that the roans come next In order Blacks seldom live to be over twenty and creams rarely exceed ten or flf teen. Holland’s Irrigation Works. Holland has 10,101) windmills, each of which drains 310 acres of laud. a> an average cost of 25 cents an acr« a year. The Tall and the Short. Norwegians and I*apps, the tallesl and the shortest people of the world, live side by side. Spread of Temperance. One man in six in the British Davj is a total abstainer.