As the investigation of disputed, spurious and fraudulent pedigrees was a prime necessity in order to reach safe and honest grounds upon which to build up a breed of trotters, much of my time through all my editorial life was devoted to this kind of investigation. From the first page of the first volume of the “Register” I was deeply impressed with the importance of having all pedigrees absolutely correct, and this impression grew into a vital conviction that without this a breed of trotters never could be established. I soon found that I had accepted from some breeders of the very highest respectability a goodly number of pedigrees that were thoroughly rotten in their extensions. This taught me that I must study the moral fiber of breeders critically, as well as their pedigrees, and that from the highest to the lowest. Some men are honest from principle and because it is right to be honest, while others are honest because “honesty is the best policy.” Some men are dishonest because of ignorance, others because they were born cheats, but the most dangerous of all rogues is the man who will utter a false pedigree and then prove it by trained witnesses who, for half a dollar, can remember whatever is necessary and forget whatever might be against their employer’s interest. By this kind of evidence a man can prove anything. Not very long ago a man proved that a certain mare came out of a certain other mare, and when that was shown to be impossible he turned round and proved (?) that she was out of another mare, and there was just as much truth in the one as the other, and not a single word of truth in either. So long as there are men in the world there will be rogues among them, but the intelligence of the public in breeding matters has so greatly advanced that many an honest man would begin to doubt his own sanity if he were even to think of breeding in lines that he was once ready to fight for as the only right and successful way to breed. The brainless advocacy of “more running blood in the trotter,” was substantially the basis of the whole brood of dishonest pedigrees, against which it became my duty to wage war; but to-day no intelligent man in all the land can be found to advocate any such balderdash unless it be in the foolish support of thoughtless opinions previously expressed.