82 Sport and Life. 



personally acquainted, had been good enough to single me out for 

 the leading position upon the committee, and though I at once 

 strongly deprecated my qualifications for this post, I had no 

 hesitation in expressing my conviction that such a scheme, if 

 properly carried out, would not only fill a long-felt want and 

 prevent the now-existing confusion, but also would lead the way to 

 the publication of more correct sportsmen's handbooks than are 

 some of those which at present figure under that title. 



Among the opponents to " Smoothbore's " proposal was one 

 gentleman in particular, whose somewhat vehement criticism* 

 forced upon one the conclusion that he had failed to grasp 

 the real object which " Smoothbore " had in view. Had he 

 understood it he would hardly have written that " the proposal 

 to establish a committee to tell me what I prefer to estimate 

 for myself jars upon my sporting instinct, and violates the true 

 sentiment of sport." In further explanation of what his sporting, 

 instinct is like, he stated that " the trophy in my own collection 

 that, perhaps, I value most, is a miserable little six point red-deer 

 head, badly set up by a country stuffer the head of the first stag 

 I ever killed, ' A poor thing, but mine own.' ' 



Now, so far as I grasped " Smoothbore's " proposition, nobody 

 had the slightest intention of dictating to any sportsman which 

 of his heads he himself should value most ; on the contrary, 

 his own opinion, as that of the sportsman who killed and owned 

 the trophy, would, in accordance with the ordinary principles 

 governing a judge or jury, have no weight whatever with a 

 properly constituted committee. Reverse this writer's case, 

 and say that his first stag, instead of being a " miserable little six 

 pointer," had been a twenty-four pointer of extreme size, as was 

 that of a lucky young friend of mine. Would he have written in 

 the same strain ? But leave all such personal considerations out of 

 play. Certain it is that till some such basis of common agreement 

 be arrived at, confusion and inaccuracy will reign in a department 



* Field, Dec. 14, 1895. 



