THE LANGSHAN CONTROVERSY. 



up to 1887,* though not since ; the fact is that 

 we personally noted and reportedt cases of 

 . scaly leg in Langshans so early as the Bath 

 and West of England Show at Oxford in 187S. 

 It was further affirmed that Black Cochins were 

 a mere cross-made bird, and consequently the 

 cocks always moulted out more or less red and 

 yellow in the feathers : it had soon to be 

 admitted that Langshan cockerels also often 

 came with red and yellow hackles, and it was 

 easily proved that Black Cochins had been 

 imported and bred pure, and as free from 

 coloured feathers as other black fowls. This 

 statement of a simple fact was coolly described:!: 

 as an " impudently false assertion," and as an 

 "unscrupulous editorial canard" of the writer of 

 these lines ; and another concerning the dark 

 legs of former Black Cochins was stigmatised as 

 "effrontery" in the same coarse way.§ Stress 

 was also laid upon the longer tails, larger 

 combs, gloss on the plumage, and black legs — ■ 

 points in which we now know there was more 

 or less force ; but which had also been found 

 in early Black Cochins, and all of which are 

 largely matter of selection or condition, while 

 unfortunately no attempt was made to select 

 types for exhibition which made them con- 

 spicuous. Instead of the gloss insisted upon, 

 hens were repeatedly shown quite out of condi- 

 tion, with no lustre at all, and almost brown ; 

 a cock high and almost bare on leg would 

 appear in the same pen as a hen very short, 

 heavily feathered, and hocked ; and amid all 

 this confusion and absence of any type at all, 

 judges and reporters were expected to see that 

 which Langshan breeders could not select even 

 for themselves. 



This would speedily have righted itself as 

 more people bred the fowl ; but unfortunately 

 the members of this peculiar cult attributed the 

 difficulties which had arisen entirely from their 

 own utter want of knowledge and experience 

 to their critics, and mean motives were 

 freely imputed in the most reckless fashion. 

 When Mr. Ludlow pointed out, for instance, 

 that the lustre said to be so peculiar was mainly 

 a matter of condition, and that Black Malays 

 and Hamburghs exhibited as much of it as 

 Langshans, his statement of such an elementary 

 fact was affirmed by these people to be "utterly 

 false." 



[In the last edition of this work Wx. Lewis 

 Wright gave further particulars of the con- 

 troversy which took place over a number of 



• The Langshan Fowl, 3rd ed. , p. 72. 

 t Live Stock Journal, June 14, 1878. 

 ■•■ The Langshan Fowl, ist ed., p. 34, 

 5 The Langshan Controversy, 



years, and which it is not now necessary to 

 relate so fully. — Ed.] 



Repeated appeals were made to ourselves 

 and to the judges to " select a type," and the 

 ideal then selected precisely describes a bird 

 provided later in the Black Orpington. But it 

 was not accepted, and the confusion went on, 

 so that in 1878 Lady Gwydyr won prizes simul- 

 taneously in Black Cochin and Langshan classes 

 at the same shows, with birds of the same 

 breeding. Facts of this kind were no doubt 

 annoying, and such views and arguments may 

 have been irritating to people who knew and 

 felt that they had something distinctive, iii spite 

 of it, though they could neither define it nor 

 make others see it. But to represent it as 

 coming from " Cochin champions," or say that 

 it was all because the Langshan "threatened 

 vested interests," was farcical in face of the 

 notorious desire everywhere in the fancy, both 

 then and now, for anything really new. The 

 same must be said of the assertion that_ any- 

 thing in those old days conveyed in the faintest 

 way any imputation upon Langshan breeders 

 of being " impostors, who were endeavouring 

 to impose upon a credulous public." _ Still the 

 bitterness of the replies to any criticism, how- 

 ever legitimate, greatly retarded the progress 

 of the Langshan. People preferred to keep at 

 a respectful distance from those who so freely 

 indulged in fierce recrimination over differences 

 of opinion rather than run the risks of closer 

 acquaintance with them or their birds. Such a 

 feeling does not further the prospects of any 

 new breed ; and it hindered those of the Lang- 

 shan ; but we gladly leave here this phase of 

 its history, except so far as it had actual effect 

 upon the evolution of the fowl itself, and upon 

 the form which it has ultimately assumed. 



That evolution is rather curious. We still 

 continued to seek for some " type " in the show- 

 pens, and at last, at Birmingharn in 1877, while 

 we could see no guiding standard in 

 Changes t^g class as a whole, we remarked 

 that one pair shown by Mr. Heasel- 

 den,* "if they are admitted as the 

 type — whatever that is — we thought the hand- 

 somest pen in the class." There seemed to us 

 there something really distinctive and handsome, 

 and which we had never seen before. At the 



* We have previously stated, from recollection only, that this 

 type was first discovered by us in birds shown by Mr. Thomson 

 at Birmingham in 1877 and 1878. The first date being challenged 

 by Miss Croad in regard to Mr. Thomson, we have referred 

 to our actual show criticisms, and find that the "type" alluded 

 to, which is the only important point, and the only one regarded 

 by us, had been observed in regard to two other exhibitors as 

 here stated, one having been confounded with Mr, Thomson's 

 birds. 



Type. 



