Meanwhile, in the heart of the child there remains always a weary pain that lies on his childish life as a stone may lie on a flower. "I killed them," he says often to himself, thinking of the two little white brothers frozen to death on Martinswand that cruel night; and he does the things that are told him, and is obedient, and tries to be content with the humble daily duties that are his lot, and when he says his prayers at bedtime always ends them so: "Dear God, do let the little lambs play with Findelkind that is in heaven."
Ouida.
HORSE-RACING IN FRANCE.
CONCLUDING PAPER.
By the end of July the dispersion of the racing fraternity has become general. Some have gone into the provinces to lead the pleasant life of the château; some are in the Pyrenees, eating trout and cotelettes d'izard at Luchon; while those whom the Paris season has quite worn out, or put in what they would call too "high" a condition, are refitting at Mont Dore or else at Vichy, which is the Saratoga of France—with this difference, that nobody goes to Vichy unless he is really ill, and that very few were ever known to get married there. But if our friend the sportsman should happen to have nothing the matter with him, and should know of nothing better to do during the summer than to go where his equine instincts would lead him, he may spend the month of July at least in following what is called "the Norman circuit." This consists of a series of meetings at different places, either on the coast or very near the Channel, in that green land of Normandy which is to France what the blue-grass region of Kentucky is to America—the great horse-raising province of the country. Here the circuit begins with the Beauvais meeting, always largely attended by reason of its proximity to Paris and to the numerous châteaux, all occupied at this season of the year, and in one of which, at Mouchy-le-Chastel, the duc de Mouchy entertains a large and distinguished company. Sunday and Tuesday are the days for races at Beauvais, Monday being given up to pigeon-shooting. Then follow in quick succession the courses of Amiens, Abbeville, Rouen, Havre and Caen; and in all these places the daily programme will be found to be a very varied one—too much so, indeed, to suit the taste of the English, whose notions of the fitness of things are offended by the sight of a steeple-chase and a flat-race on the same track. The Normans, on the contrary, finding even this double attraction insufficient, add to it the excitement of a trotting-match in harness and under the saddle. And such trotting! "Allais! marchais!" shouts the starter in good Norman, and away go the horses, dragging their lumbering, rattling Norman carts, guided by equally ponderous Norman peasants, over a track that is sure to be heavy or else too hard—conditions sufficient of themselves to account for the fact that the time made by these provincial trotters has not by any means been reduced to figures like the 2.18 of Dexter or the phenomenal 2.14 of Goldsmith Maid. It is possible, however, that this somewhat primitive condition of things may be gradually bettered by time, and that when American institutions and customs shall have come to be the mode in France trotting-races, and perhaps walking-matches and base-ball, will be developed with the rest; but up to the present time, it must be confessed, these various amusements have been regarded by the French public with profound indifference.
I cannot help feeling the most lively regret that trotting-contests should have taken no hold upon the fancy of my countrymen, who would find in their magnificent roads an opportunity for the demonstration of the practical, every-day value of a good trotter far more favorable than any possessed by America. But it seems that no considerations of utility or convenience can prevail against popular prejudices and, above all, the mode; and we find even the baron d'Étreilles, official handicapper and starter to the Jockey Club—and therefore an authority—writing this singular paragraph in Le Sport: "Trotting-races deserve but little encouragement. The so-called trotting-horse does not, in fact, trot at all. His pace is forced to such a degree of exaggeration as to lose all regularity, at the same time that it is rendered valueless for any practical purpose. The trotter can no more be put to his speed upon an ordinary road than can the racer himself. By breaking up the natural gait of a horse he is made to attain an exceptional speed, it is true, but in doing so he has contracted an abnormal sort of movement for which it is impossible to find a name. It is something between a trot and a racking pace, and with it a first-rate trotter can make four kilomètres (two miles and a half) in seven minutes and a half, and not much less, whatever may be said to the contrary. I know that certain time-keepers have marked this distance as having been done in seven minutes, but this I consider disputable, to say the least." M. d'Étreilles cites, however, as an exception to his rules, a horse called Rochester, belonging to the Prince E. de Beauvan, which trotted nineteen miles in one hour without breaking or pacing, but when a return bet was proposed, with the distance increased to twenty miles, the owner of Rochester refused.
These assertions of the French authority will appear strange enough to Americans. But we must add that the views of M. d'Étreilles on this subject are by no means universally shared in France. A writer whose practical experience and long observation entitle his opinions to much weight—M. Gayot—goes so far as to say that the American trotters really form a distinct race. "The Northern States of the Union," he writes, "have accomplished for the trotter what England has done for the thoroughbred: by selecting the best—that is to say, the swiftest and the most enduring—and by breeding from these, there has been fixed in the very nature of their progeny that wonderful aptitude for speed which," in direct contradiction to the opinion of M. d'Étreilles, he declares to be "of the greatest practical utility."
The administration of the Haras and the Society for the Encouragement of the Raising of Horses of Half-blood have established special meetings at which trotting-prizes are given. That these are by no means to be despised has been proved by M. Jouben's Norman trotter Tentateur, who last year earned for his owner twenty thousand francs without the bets. There is a special journal, La France Chevaline, which represents the interests of the "trot," and its development has been further encouraged by an appropriation of sixty thousand francs voted this year by the Chamber. A former officer of the Haras has also set up an establishment at Vire for the training of trotters. In 1878 a track was laid out at Maison Lafitte, near Paris, for the trial of trotting-horses, and the government, in the hope that animals trained to this gait would be sent to Paris from other countries during the great Exhibition if sufficient inducement were offered, awarded a sum of sixty-two thousand francs to be given in premiums. Six races took place on the principal day of the trials. These were in harness to two- and four-wheeled wagons, and two of the matches were won by Normans, two by English horses and two by horses from Russia of the Orloff breed. America was, unfortunately, not represented. As to the public, it took little interest in the event, notwithstanding its novelty: the few persons who had come to look on soon grew tired of it, and after the fourth race not a single spectator was left upon the stands.