a fair example of residences of a more modern style. It is the home of the Major McDowell before mentioned as the late purchaser of Ashland, and within it are some of the best portraits of Henry Clay, together with one of "Young Henry," over which hangs the sword he carried to the field of Buena Vista.

ous would still prefer it, with the proper repairs, to those of the newer style.

But of all the old dwellings which yet survive to typify the ideal of an "old Kentucky home," such as may have been that of the Shelbys of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the most curious is probably that on the Woodburn, The Gothic Alexander estate of in Woodford County. This great estate is well known as the home, and one of the earliest breeding - places, of some of the very best American running stock. Of late it is becoming equally famous for trotting stock, into which, like others of the breeding establishments, it inclines to merge its activity in preference to the first. King Alfonso (sire of Foxhall), Glen Athol, Pat Molloy, Falsetto, Powhatan (brother of Parole), and Asteroid, and their progeny, of the one breed, are to be seen about the place, with Harold (sire of Maud S.), Miss Russell (her dam), Lord Russell (her brother), Belmont, and Annapolis, and their progeny, of the other. Lexington was very early purchased by the Alexanders for $15,000. The price was deemed exorbitant at the time, till one son of Kentucky was sold for $40,000, and $50,000 was refused for another, Asteroid.

house, of blue limestone, with rustic gates of approach and bridges, might easily pass for one of our villas up the Hudson. The ground hereabouts is boldly undulating. It is well scattered with groves of fine forest trees, and one of these on the place has a great oak which might rival the famous redwoods of California. We come to a point where the mansion, on its knoll, is reflected in a pond. The farther slope is spotted with grazing South-downs, the hither one with a herd of Alderney cattle, upon whose leader tinkles a bell which might have a place in a collection of bric-a-brac, while between them pasture the beautiful high-bred colts. The lines of life under such circumstances as these certainly seem cast in pleasant places. The flocks and herds are all of the most costly and gentle sorts, and might become such a dainty pastoral life as that shown in the canvases of Boucher and Watteau. On another part of the estate, a centre for unstudied groupings of the colts, which wander thither from the vicinity of the stables and track near by, is an old house

The house is not now occupied by the family, who have taken the Buford house, in the neighborhood, instead. It was built originally by a younger brother of a Scotch baronet, whose wandering fancy

known as Llangollen. It has gone to de- | led him to settle and marry here in the cay now, and is occupied by a familiar Western wilderness. He refused to leave figure in local horse circles, the trainer, the spot even when his brother. died and "Old Buck"; but it has been in its time he became a baronet in his turn. He the residence of a family of ministers, the drew the revenues, however, and expendLewises, who brought race-horses hither ed them in improving the large tract he from Virginia, and later it was a board- had purchased till it had become, as it now ing-school. Many amateurs of the curi- is, quite a princely domain. He contem

plated a new mansion, with the rest, but this was never carried out, and so he contented himself with additions to the old one. It is low and rambling, part brick, part wood, which is silvery gray with the weather, and has its chimneys outside, and a dilapidated modern veranda in front. It is like some quaint foreign grange, and makes an excellent subject for the watercolor artist.

more than a corresponding time. Of some of the greatest that may be mentioned, for instance, Dexter did not begin a racing career till the age of six, Lady Thorne till eight, Goldsmith Maid till nine; and the last mentioned made her great time of a mile in 2.14 at the age of seventeen.

Each blue-grass breeder of prominence has his regularly printed catalogue of stock, revised yearly, generally with a

Some, as General Withers, insert the selling prices, from which "no deviation" is advertised. In looking over such a catalogue, from $400 up to $2000 are found to be demanded for the younger animals, with proportionately more for older ones that could be at once made useful. But when a horse has really entered the ranks of the great "flyers," there is hardly any limit to his value. One with a record of 2.30 may be estimated in a general way

A son of the original Alexander, a bro-wood-cut of his best stallion on the cover. ther of the present resident owner, was living in this house during the war, when guerrillas came down upon him twice, and carried off the most valuable of his animals. On the first of these raids the great trotting sire Abdallah, heretofore spoken of, and Bay Chief were taken. The superintendent endeavored to throw the robbers off the track by substituting inferior animals, till brought to a sense of the error of his ways with a rope around his neck. It is remarkable to say, as show-worth $10,000. From 2.30 down to 2.20, ing the completeness with which the issues of the civil war are over, that the only one of the guerrillas wounded in this foray, after having first been condemned to be hanged, then, as a commutation, to impris-pation in comparison. Mr. Bonner is said onment for life, and finally set free altogether, was this last year employed as a harvest laborer on the Alexander place.

$1000 may be added for each successive second. When we come into the teens, and near the head of the record, juggling with gold and diamonds is a coarse occu

to have paid $33,000 for Dexter, and $36,000 for Rarus, and Mr. Vanderbilt $20,000 for Maud S. But this last was before she had made her great time; now that she has made it, you are told confidentially that a person stands ready to draw his check willingly for $75,000 whenever he can get a horse that will lead her, and give him the

On the next occasion it was the thorough-bred Asteroid that was run off. The artist Troye was engaged in painting his portrait at the time, and his principal rage was at the interruption of his work. This portrait, in which the trainer, "Old Ansel," | distinction of having the fastest trotter in and the jockey, "Brown Dick," are introduced, though on a reduced scale, with a quaint idea of not detracting from the importance of the horse, was completed on the subsequent recovery of Asteroid, and hangs in the dining-room of Mr. L. Brodhead, the general manager of the estate; and Asteroid himself, long past his usefulness, now browses out a comfortable existence on the place, till he be overtaken by the usual lot of men and horses.

A radical difference is found in the education of the runner and the trotter, corresponding somewhat to the demands put upon them. The rule for the thoroughbred may be called "a short life and a merry one." He is brought on on the forcing system, expected to do his best on the turf at two and three years of age, and shortly after is good for little or nothing. The trotter, on the other hand, is developed much more slowly, and lasts for far

the world. But how does it pay? Well, it pays first in stock-raising; it pays next in the opportunity to take purses and stakes afforded by the great system of racing circuits; and no doubt even those gentlemen who withdraw from racing, and do their driving in private life, find it pay in a pleasure and improved health from this kind of recreation, extravagant as it is. which they might not be able to procure so well from the expenditure of equal sums in any other direction.

The blue-grass proprietors are, on the whole, of a sober-minded, even religious cast. Whoever has expected to find them of the Swashbuckler, rioting sort will be much mistaken. There are exceptions, it is true, but as a rule there is little drinking, or even going to races, grace is said before meat, and the family conveyance is regularly got out on Sunday mornings for driving to church in the next town.

THE DAWNING OF INDEPENDENCE.

WHEN France, in 1765, surrendered Minister who ceded Canada, claimed aft

Canada to England, it suddenly erward that he had done it in order to opened men's eyes to a very astonishing destroy the British nation by creating for fact. They discovered that British Amer- it a rival. This assertion was not made ica had at once become a country so large till ten years later, and may very likely as to make England seem ridiculously have been an after-thought, but it was dessmall. Even the cool-headed Dr. Frank- tined to be confirmed by the facts. lin, writing that same year to Mary Stevenson in London, spoke of England as "that petty island which, compared to America, is but a stepping-stone in a brook, scarce enough of it above-water to keep one's shoes dry." The far-seeing French statesmen of the period looked at the matter in the same way. Choiseul, the Prime

VOL. LXVII.-No. 401.-46

We have now to deal with the outbreak of a contest which was, according to the greatest of the English statesmen of the period, "a most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical war." No American writer ever employed to describe it a combination of adjectives so vigorous as those here brought to

show that a British force was going out | horrors of that midnight cry," as she calls to seize the patriotic supplies at Concord; he had warned Hancock and Adams at Rev. Jonas Clark's parsonage in Lexington, and had rejected Sergeant Monroe's caution against unnecessary noise, with the rejoinder, "You'll have noise enough here before long-the regulars are coming out." As he galloped on his way the regulars were advancing with steady step behind him, soon warned of their own danger by alarm-bells and signalguns. By the time Revere was captured

it. The women of that town were roused by the beat of drums and ringing of bells; they hastily gathered their children together and fled to the outlying farmhouses; seventy or eighty of them were at Fresh Pond, in hearing of the guns at Menotomy, now Arlington; the next day their husbands bade them flee to Andover, whither the college property had been sent, and thither they went, alternately walking and riding, over fields where the bodies of the slain lay unburied.