MAMBRINO PAYMASTER (widely known in later years as Blind Paymaster).—This was a large, strong-boned, dark-bay horse, sixteen hands and an inch high. When young he was somewhat light and leggy, but with age he spread out and became a horse of substance. He was bred by Azariah Arnold, of the town of Washington, in Dutchess County, New York. There is some uncertainty about the year this horse was foaled, but it was somewhere between 1822 and 1826. He was got by Mambrino, son of Messenger, and his dam was represented to be by imported Paymaster. The late Mr. Edwin Thorne made a statement a few years ago that in an interview with Azariah Arnold he said that he did not know or remember the horse that was the sire of the dam. At that time Mr. Arnold was very old, and doubtless his mental faculties very much impaired, so it would not be remarkable that he should have forgotten all about it. On the other hand, Nelson Haight, Daniel B. Haight, Seth P. Hopson, and others of like high character, maintain that Mr. Arnold, in his younger days, always represented the mare to be by Paymaster, and the name of the horse itself is very strong evidence that he did so represent it, and is a standing proclamation to that effect. There can be no possible doubt that in earlier life Mr. Arnold constantly represented this mare to be by Paymaster; neither can there be any reasonable doubt that when his faculties were impaired with age he told Mr. Thorne that he did not remember her pedigree. Mr. Arnold’s neighbors all agree that he was a man of unblemished character and incapable of a willful misrepresentation, when in possession of his faculties. Again, that this Paymaster cross was not only possible, but probable, is shown by the fact that imported Paymaster was kept by Ebenezer Haight, in the year 1807, in the same township with Azariah Arnold, and the years 1808 and 1809 in the same part of the county. Therefore, Mr. Thorne to the contrary notwithstanding, I have but little doubt that the Paymaster cross is correct. He had a small star in his forehead and a little white on one hind foot. His back, loin and hips were altogether superior, and those who knew him best say they never saw his equal at these points. His head was large and bony, with an ear after the Mambrino model. His neck was of medium length and his shoulder good. His hind legs were quite crooked and too much cut in below the hock in front, giving the legs at that point a narrow and weak appearance; his hocks were large and at the curb place showed a fullness. His cannon bones, all round, were short for a horse of his size, and his feet were excellent. He was slow in maturing, but when he filled out he lost all that narrow, weedy appearance which characterized his colthood. He was not beautiful, but powerful.