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'Etreilles, 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 kilometres (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'Etreilles 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.