There is scarcely a man alive who has not heard tales of the days when men were men, when Cecil Rhodes was carving an empire and Jack the Ripper worked on a smaller scales. There is also scarcely a man alive who believes any of it without something in the way of proof. With that as background, here is the story of the great trained moose of Shawinigan Falls, a noted boast of balled and legend, and an animal which so far as we can judge, actually existed.

One fine day in the spring of 1912, Monsieur Eduard Thibandeau, the esteemed mayor of Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, decided to take a walk into the bush from his country villa at Lac des lies. In the course of his visitation to this uninhabited ares, he came upon a very young and altogether wretched cow moose upon whom he took immediate pity. He swept the gawky calf into his arms and carried it back to his house. After a brief meditation, he decided that the animal should be removed to his stable in Shawinigan Falls and trained to peform some useful duty.

Overburdened by the pressure of public affairs, the eminent mayor was unable to handle the moose's schooling and commissioned his son, Sylvain, to tutor the beast. Sylvain waited until the moose attained a reasonable size and then constructed a sulky in front of which the moose was to become the swiftest beast for miles around and a pleasure for all to behold. But it soon became evident that there are certain obstacles to be overcome in the training for harness of every young moose. For one thing, moose pace, and nothing can be done about it. It would neither walk nor trot but only pace.

For another thing, the moose proved itself emotionally unable to cope with the problem of turning a corner. It would travel at high speeds in a straight line, but when faced with a left or right turn, would come to a complete halt and hang its head, confused and hurt. Whereupon the driver was forced to alight from the sulky and physically push the moose until it was once again aimed in the correct direction and high speed travel could proceed. The coming of winter matorially affected neither the animal's speed nor his inability to turn corners, and in the chillier seasons it hauled a small sled instead of a sulky.

In the years that followed, Shawinigan Falls expanded to became a bustling lumber town, and Mayor Thibeaudeau came to realize that he had less of a novelty and more of a traffic menace on his hands. It became clear that the moose was quite without fear and that sooner or later it would plough into some local citizen or other minor obstacle which chanced to be in its way. It was also quite clear that full grown moose would suffer little or no damage from such a collision, but that the other party more than likely would be jolted right into his coffin.

A Most Peculiar Race

So the mayor, being both a wise and thrifty person, set about selling his trained moose. After considerable dealings with various prospective purchasers, he sold the animal to a small travelling circus where, it is reported, it was used to run sprint trials (on a straight course) against another member of the circus case, a large trained ostrich. It is further reported that the moose could beat the ostrich nine times out of ten.

After this, we know nothing, but we presume the moose died a natural death, still the uncrowned champion of all trained moose and ostriches in existence.

All of which has nothing to do with Harvard sports, but we suspect that if alive today such a beast could make a great deal of money running dashes at Suffolk Downs.