Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/375

 Rh From the time of foaling the colts are gently handled, and made as familiar with the touch of harness as with that of human hands. As a consequence they are tame, gentle, and even affectionate, and never need formal breaking. The effect of the system of training has been apparent in some notable records of speed. On the Bay District Association track, at San Francisco, in 1880, the two-year-old Fred Crocker lowered the record for a one-mile trot to 2' 25¼". Last year Bonita, a two-year-old filly, cut it down to 2' 24½". At the same trotting exhibition Wildflower, another two-year-old, made the mile in 2' 21"; and Hinda Rose, a yearling filly, added to the fame of the farm by cutting down the yearling record to 2' 36½".

The interiors of these fine villas are, as a rule, better than the exteriors. The Mills house, at Millbrae, residence of a banking and railway magnate, now of New York, is a notable collection of portières and Oriental rugs, and bed-chambers done in the finest woods, with a picture-gallery of works of Gérôme, Detaille, and Bouguereau, while from all the windows are vistas of fan-palms, flower-beds, greensward, and bronzes. Ralston's old house, at Belmont, now the property of Senator Sharon, is of those of the greatest interest, through interest in the remarkable man who built it. Starting from humble origin, he rose to be a great capitalist and the promoter of brilliant schemes of improvement, both public and private. He conducted to success a hundred projects which in other hands would have been folly, and arrived thus at such an unbounded confidence in his star that he thought he could not fail. He was entangled at last, however, in schemes beyond his control. Strong and athletic, and in the prime of life, he went down to "Harry Meigs's" wharf, in San Francisco—almost the very point