EARLY POULTRY JUDGLNG. 



223 



Good and upright judging is the greatest 

 object to be desired at all competitive exhibi- 

 tions. In poultry judging very great changes 

 in method and practice have taken place since 

 the first edition of the Illustrated Book of Poultry. 

 At first it was customary to exhibit a cock and 

 three hens, and after that the rule was a cock 

 and two hens, known as a " pen " of birds. As 

 a pen rarely contained the best in all its inmates, 

 this made judging complicated, and often 

 questionable. For years after that, when the 

 males were separated, a pair of hens or pullets 

 were shown together, and we often find ourselves 

 still regretting this, as a better test of the 

 breeder's skill ; though on the whole single 

 birds are better, both for the exhibitor, and in 

 making the judge's task so far simple and clear. 

 The early system of judging differed 

 Changes of entirely from that known to the 

 Method present generation of exhibitors. 



In Judging. ^t the time we speak of, two or 

 even three judges always acted in 

 concert, and excepting one or two of the very 

 largest, usually made all the awards through 

 the entire show, in all classes alike, often 

 arbitrating upon as many as a thousand 

 pens. This system was only possible on 

 account of the little general skill in breeding 

 at that date, which made a few good pens stand 

 out so clearly from the rest as to be selected 

 with far greater celerity and ease. Even pens 

 worthy of being " highly commended " were 

 scarce in those days, so that at a large show 

 even such cards had a considerable money value 

 in selling stock ; and it was easy for any judge 

 then to judge more than double the number of 

 pens he could possibly manage now. The 

 gradual increase of birds of real merit made 

 necessary the suggestion of an extra grade, 

 originally due to us and now everywhere adopted, 

 of " v.'iry highly commended " cards, of which it 

 is understood that such a card, however freely 

 bestowed, should be restricted to specimens not 

 unworthy of a prize in a good class, but for which 

 prizes are not available. Since then a yet higher 

 grade has been invented, in a " reserve " card, 

 ranking next after the actual prize list, and 

 which also has conveniences should any prize 

 bird be disqualified after judging. At the Crystal 

 Palace show as many as ten actual prizes are 

 sometimes given in a few of the principal classes, 

 and there will be " very highly commended " 

 specimens outside even of these. Such great 

 changes in the very conditions of competition, 

 which many of the younger generation can 

 scarcely realise, may make clearer how it was 

 that one or two pairs of judges could at that 

 early period perform with more or less efficiency 



a task which no judge whatever would dream of 

 attempting to-day. 



But another reason was the entire absence of 

 public criticism, and therefore of any due sense 

 of responsibility. Even the nominal responsi- 

 bility was joint or corporate ; and if 

 Evils of the anyone protested, with evidently 

 Early System, much reason, against some award, 

 Jorkins said it was Spenlow's fault, 

 and Spenlow said it was Jorkins's. This was 

 convenient, and created in both an indifference 

 to dissatisfaction which at times was almost 

 lordly in its grandeur, since there was absolutely 

 no check upon it. The prize list, and one or two 

 lines (from one of the judges) as to whether a 

 class was good or poor, or some particular pen 

 " very fine," was all that appeared in the one 

 or two journals which gave even so much to 

 poultry shows ; of independent skilled criticism 

 there was none. The evils resulting from all 

 this had become manifest, and led us from the 

 first, as soon as able to exert any influence in 

 such matters, on the one hand to advocate single 

 judging, each judge being solely responsible for 

 his own awards and those only; and on the 

 other to endeavour to show by actual example 

 what intelligent criticism of exhibits and awards, 

 so detailed as to be capable of being itself judged 

 in the light of day, might and ought to be.* 

 The first innovation we felt would halve the 

 work and double the efficiency of the judging 

 staff; the other must in time enforce a more 



* Our critical notes upon a few of the principal shows in the 

 Journal of Horticidtiire {then the only British poultry organ) 

 for several years previous to 1S74, were the first and only ones 

 attempted up to that time. They were then succeeded by 

 similar ones over a wider area in the Live Stock Journal and 

 Fancier's Gazette, which was for years, and while under our 

 direction, the leading poultry organ in Great Britain. In these 

 we still shared, but aided by a staff trained as far as possible to 

 follow the same system, the essence of which was not to pro- 

 nounce mere dogmatic opinion, but to give details and reasons, 

 above all whenever any award was seriously questioned. Thus 

 was commenced that metho'd of show reporting in England, 

 without which the present vast exhibition system would speedily 

 languish, and whose present scale may be judged from the fact 

 that a current issue of The Feathered World contains reporis 

 of 35 shows, occupying 63 large columns of small type. Our 

 own reports testify that in every case we gave detailed reasons 

 for any opinion expressed, but that on no occasion is there a 

 word to indicate that any exhibit of our own ought to have 

 stood any higher than it did. It can be stated now without 

 offence, tliat this is no small boast. The fact will seem strange 

 to-diy, when no judge dreams of resenting criticism that is part 

 of the accepted scheme of things ; but it is a fact, that in those 

 earlier years they did — especially the two of them who judged 

 the greater number of shows at that time — fiercely resent having 

 their long unquestioned infallibility called in question ; and as 

 soQn as our personal share in it became known, they taught us 

 effectually that it v. as absolutely necessary either to cease from 

 our criticisms, or from telling the truth, or from exhibiting under 

 them. There were other reasons, including heavy pressure of 

 work ; but that was the main reason which drove us out of 

 breeding poultry for exhibition. That the price had to be paid 

 is some measure of the work that had to he done in those days, 

 and of the necessity for doing it. 



