Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1919 — NOW BUT MEMORY [ARTICLE]

NOW BUT MEMORY

Caballeros of California Practically Extinct. # '""j , : Passed With the Disappearance of the Wonderful Horses Which Were Their Pride —Noted for Courtliness and Hospitality. •o The persistent disappearance of the horse from the life and labor of California, and the substitution of the automobile and auto truck In its place, must serve as a mental depression to the old-timers. For there was .a time in California when the horse was not only indispensable, but also the chief ornament of the country. In the old days “before the gringo came,” and indeed for many a year after that, the horses of California were both a wonder and a delight. They were the joy of th& caballeros, that is to say the Spanish gentlemen of California. With the disappearance of the horse it seems that the caballeros are also disappearing. It is - high time that Jackson A. Graves gives us his longpromised book, “The Passing of the Dominantßace,” a book that no other man is so well qualified to write. The California horse was a truly wonderful creature —a cross between the pure Arabian strain and the native wild horse. It was on the backs of such horses that a band of Californians under command of Gen. Andrps Pico, armed only with lanePs, defeated signally n troop of United States soldiers under Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny at the battle of San Pasqnal in San Diego county. v —,vTsie caballeros who bred and Used those horses were also a wonderful class of men. The saddles and bridles they used were nearly always very beautiful and of great cost. They were ornamented with silver trappings, and the sfturs on the caballeros’ heels were also of silver. Courtly and hospitable were the caballeros. Their homes were like the ,old feudal homes of Europe. Indian and Mexican servants were there to do one’s least bidding and to anticipate one’s slightest desire. But we never see them now except when Los Angeles holds an all-too-in-frequent fiesta. Then a few of them emerge from their obscurity, riding down the shining highways of the town with memories of the happy days of the past gimving like embers in their dusky eyes.—Los Angeles Times.