488 



JOUBNAL OF HOKTICDIiTDaE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEB. 



[ Dscombor IS, 13S9. 



White Dorkiag cook, and m the following season with a Grey 

 Dorking cock, go far to prove my statement. The result of 

 the first year's breeding was to produce from the yellow hens 

 by a white cook bird eiac:iy what I stated — namely, white for 

 yellow. The result of the second year would seem to show 

 that yellow and black stand in the same position. At all 

 events the white neck, hackle, back, saddle, and wing of the 

 Grey Dorking answered the condition of a change from yellow 

 to while in the progeny of the Bu£f Cochin hens ; for sandy 

 buff is to all intents and purposes a yellow. That black and 

 white are interchangeable is, beyond' the result in breeding 

 Pile Gime, widened by the facttha"t in mating Golden-spangled 

 with White Polish fowlj, to produce the Chamois Pohsh, the 

 black spangle becomes white. 



The case of interchange between yellow and white is not so 

 dearly shown as the above, and that" between yellow and black 

 needs more experiment before it can be asserted. The matter, 

 however, is of very great interest, and by experiment it may 

 lead to the establishment cf certain laws connected with colours 

 in breeding, of which we are at present ignorant. 



By purBuing this inquiry, the breeding of fancy poultry will 

 add to its impor;ance in combining the science of natural laws 

 with amusement ; and the question, which in a former num- 

 ber I mooted with regard to the external influences of colour, 

 will, if established by experiments, be one of very many proofs 

 that the Holy Scriptures are veritable records, and the truth- 

 ful exponents of everyday iife if we will but read them praoti- 

 oally, and not regard them afar off as tables of stone on a 

 cloud-capped mountain.— Egomet. 



COMMITTEEMEN EXBQBITING. 



I KEi'RAiNEB from replying to " Egomet's " letter in the 

 Journal of the 11th November, as before doing so I was desirous 

 of seeing " Jvstice's " answer to my question. Since then, 

 business and other engagements, and a sick house, have pre- 

 vented my attending to the subject, and on returning to it I find 

 I have a deal of leeway to make up. I can assure "Egomet" 

 I did not consider his fijrst communieajion as " meddlesome." I 

 think that when any question is opened up in the columns of a 

 public journal it becomes at once public property, and it is 

 competent for anyone to express an opinion on the matter. 



Reverting to my article of November 4th, I really am at a 

 loss to discover what there is in it to justify ''Egomet" in 

 drawing the " quid pro qiw " inference. To a committee such 

 as I have in my eye, anything like a money value, "quid pro 

 quo," is the very last thing which would enter their minds. I 

 must say I think the deduction hardly a fair one. I admit the 

 "confusion of pronouns," but if "Eoo.met" will refer to the 

 article again I will try to make it clear. I meant that it— i.e., 

 the offer of a local cup — affords him — i.e.. the local exhibitor— 

 an opportunity of competing among his fellows for a a trophy 

 which the foreign exhibitor catmot touch; it — i.e., the local 

 cup, is far beyond his (the foreign exhibitor's) reach, by being 

 made local. The " contingency " I supposed was that of a local 

 man winning both cups; and what I meant by its frequent 

 recurrence defeating the object of a committee in offering a local 

 cup was just this, that it would show there was no necessity for 

 offering any additional inducement to the local man, since his 

 SUCC3SS would demonstrate his capability to compete successfully 

 against all comers, and in such a case, were I on the committee, 

 I should then move the withdrawal of the local cup as having 

 accomplished its mission. I hope I make myself sufficiently 

 imderstood. I am reasoning on the supposition that if the All- 

 England cup be considered beyond the reach of the local man, 

 then let him have his local cup ; but, if the result of a show 

 proves that the local man can win the All-England prize, then 

 remove the local cup as having no honour attached to it beyond 

 its value as old silver. 



On the 18th November "Justice" replies for himself. He 

 says that the evil consequent upon committeemen exliibiting at 

 shows under their own mmagement "simply consists in the 

 amount of dissatisfaction and distrust it engenders in the minds 

 of absent exhibitors." I anticipated his reply. I am sorry if 

 "Justice" has experienced satisfactory grounds for such "dis- 

 trust and dissatisfaction." If so, let him for the future avoid 

 the society where he suspects foul play. But I am afraid he is 

 of a rather suspicious disposition, and I think he cannot censure 

 mo for speaking so plainly, when he advances such an unheard- 

 of idea as that exhibitors should be allowed to witness the 

 judging where practicable ! His previous statement that com- 

 mitteemen should not be allowed to exhibit, of course implied 



a guilty complicity on the part of the judges, witliout whose 

 connivunco no fraud could be perpetrated, and I am not now 

 surprised at his openly stiting that the judges thcmsolves should 

 be imder the eye of the exhibitor. He appears tti have been at 

 a show where such an insult was offered to a judge, and whcrtt 

 a man waa found to tolerate such espionage. I do not envy the 

 committee who allowed such a proceeding ; thoy did not know 

 their business, which would perhaps account tor their appoint- 

 ing the individual to handle the birds, who took " valuable birds 

 by the leg, the wing, and not unfroqiiently by the nock, and 

 handed to the judge for examination." What was the judge 

 about, what were the lynx-eyed exhibitors about, that they did 

 not take him by the neck 'r 



I must cither bo very incapable of expressing my meaning 

 intelligibly, or " Justice " reads with strange mental obliquity, 

 when ho interprets what I say about " measuring with their own 

 eyes," &c., to mean anything so absurd as his construction of 

 it. I agree with him ; such Quixotic conduct, as he describes, 

 on the part of any exhibitor would indicate "sheer madness." 

 " Anything more preposterous than such an idea" it is difficult 

 to imagine. I never contemplated such a thing. 



"Ju.stice" further says that ho cannot agree with me "that 

 local prizes are given on the assumption that ihe io( al man has but 

 small chance against the outside competitor." Tiiat is the only 

 ground on which I justify the offering of a local cup. Once let 

 the local man prove his ability to enter the AU-EugUnd arena, 

 and then away with the local prize, prescribed as it is in its 

 orbit, and consequent value as a prize. I wish " Jukticb " to 

 understand that I know nothing of Long Sutton or its shows, or 

 what may have transpired there. I am only trj-ing to show 

 that the offering of a local prize ought not to affect the interests 

 of outside exhibitors in the slightest degree, and I am also 

 trying to show that when sucb local prize has accomplished 

 the only object which would justify its institution, it should 

 then be withdrawn, being barren of honoui', as the greater 

 would include the less. 



Then "Ax Old Com.mitteeman " takes up the cudgels, 

 followed by " Claude," who arrives at conclusions quite foreign 

 to the spirit of my communication. The commercial clement 

 he introduces has no home with my " carpi't knights," and 

 "Claude" ought not to impute such mercenary motives to 

 exhibiting committeemen — it is not charitable ; but I can as- 

 sure him that, as an almost universal rule, shares in a poultry 

 show would be quoted in the market very much below par. 

 The rest of his letter I am disposed to pass by : the pictures are 

 so dismal. But I cannot see what "conscientious" scruples 

 there can be to prevent a person undertaking the office of com- 

 mitteeman for no other reason than that the show does not pay 

 cxpen.ses, for that is all that " Claude's" statement amounts 

 to. "All exhibitors have been pleased," and therefore there must 

 have been fair play, and no distrust or dissatisfaction. But 

 their pleasure is damped by having to subscribe to make up a 

 delicit. Permit me to say that it is no damper to a right- 

 thinking body of men. They enter into the work con amore, 

 and are quite prepared to meet the exigencies of the case, and 

 the fact of the recipient of this deficit being a stingy committee- 

 man does not do away with the deficit which would exiat 

 whether he were on the committee or not. The mistake is in 

 having such a stingy man in office. To assume, also, that this 

 unfortunate man's prize money is the total deficiency of the 

 society shows a bad state of things, for no show ought to issue 

 its schedule till the amount of prize money is guaranteed or in 

 hand. P.ay all prizes first, and promptly, too, and then, in case 

 of a deficit, let all fare alike, anl the stingy character will have 

 to pay his share, or find his level in a society more congenial 

 to his money-grubbiig propensities. I hope the poor man who 

 spent a sixth part of his yearly income wneii he could not afford 

 it has no wife and children. Let me advise that he be closely 

 watched by his friends. 



"Ax Old Committke.mas " is, aa "Egomet" says, "so 

 temperate and persuasive ;" I have to thank him for a line of 

 argunicnt I could not have followed out so ably as he. His 

 remarks. December 2nd. involve very weighty consideratioM, 

 for, as 1 have mentioned before, a corrupt committee implies a 

 corrupt judge. Can such things be ? I re.ad an expose some 

 time back, in which two new hats and a sovereign were placed 

 in the scale as the exhibitor's estimate of a judge's integrity, 

 and in that case the bribe 



" Flew up and kicked the beam." 

 I cannot believe in corrupt judges as a class, and without them 

 we cannot have corrupt committees, and I think that curtailing 

 the action of a committee on grounds that impeach alike their 



