of character, who are seeking to make at least one place in the
country where the blackguards and reckless gamblers who disgrace the
American turf shall be powerless to control affairs. The benefits of
this management will be very great. The stock of the State will be
vastly improved, and the metropolis, especially, will be able to boast
some of the finest blooded racers in the world.

LVIII. COMMODORE VANDERBILT.

Visitors to the Central Park on pleasant afternoons, rarely fail to
notice a light buggy, generally with a single occupant, drawn by a pair
of fine horses, whose whole appearance is indicative of their high
breeding and great speed. The animals would command attention anywhere,
and the driver would excite equal notice, for all are physically among
the finest specimens of their kind to be met with in the country. The
man is almost seventy-eight years of age, but he looks twenty years
younger. He is large of frame, tall, erect, and with a face as handsome
and as cold as a statue. He is one of the best known men in the country,
and he is called Cornelius Vanderbilt.

He was born on Staten Island, May 27th, 1794. His father was a boatman,
who had acquired money enough by attention to his business to purchase
and stock a farm, on which the subject of this sketch passed his boyhood.
Many interesting stories are told of Vanderbilt's boyhood, showing an
early development of the vigorous traits which have marked his maturer
life. His passion for horses seems to have been born with him. In his
seventeenth year he became a boatman in New York harbor, devoting himself
to the task of rowing passengers about or across the harbor in his own
boat. He displayed great energy and determination, and not a little
genius, in this calling, and earned money rapidly and steadily. At the
age of nineteen he married. In 1815, having saved money enough, he built
a fine schooner, and in the winter embarked in the coasting trade, going
as far south as Charleston, S.C., but continuing to ply his boat in the
harbor during the summer. By the time he was twenty-four years old, he
had saved nine thousand dollars, and had built several small vessels.

In 1818, he suddenly abandoned his flourishing business, and accepted the
command of a steamboat, with a salary of one thousand dollars. His
friends were greatly astonished at this step, and remonstrated with him
warmly, but without shaking his resolution. He had the sagac