Judges: their Election. 183 



breeding may be beneficial or prejudicial, but it can never make a man 

 a judge. 



That the sort of judge I have feebly indicated as the right one is not 

 always elected it is needless for me to state. 



When I ventured to say inexperienced judges should not be appointed, 

 I had no intention of suggesting that new judges should be forbidden the 

 ring. There are within my own knowledge many good judges of large 

 private experience who have not acted officially. But too often we see 

 men appointed purely from the accident of their position, without any 

 regard to fitness, and that is what should be discouraged. 



I am of opinion that for shows that have a national character and 

 importance, the judges should be elected, not appointed, and the larger 

 the constituency of electors the less danger of the wrong man being 

 voted to the position. To take the case of the Kennel Club. It 

 is not sufficient for them to say, " we publish our judges' names 

 before entries close, and those who object to them need not exhibit." 

 The Kennel Club court the support of the public, and it has been 

 liberally given. It has been very generally recognised that they 

 have undertaken useful work and deserve support ; and even those who 

 think the position they occupy might be better filled, have too much 

 sympathy with their objects to oppose them. Hence they enjoy, to a 

 great extent, a monopoly, and people must exhibit at their shows or not 

 at all, unless an undesirable opposition is started ; for it can hardly be 

 with any intelligent hope of improving the dog that people dip their hands 

 in the Birmingham lottery bag. 



The plan I propose, and it is one I have long publicly advocated, is to 

 let the exhibitors elect the judges, whereas at present these functionaries 

 are generally appointed by a very small section of them. 



If, as often happens, there are ten judges to be elected, let there be 

 for each section given to them individually, three men nominated by the 

 committee of the show, and let the votes go in with the entry papers ; a 

 sub-committee would count votes and publish the names of the elected 

 judges. 



This is a practice of such long standing, and applied to so many 

 things in this country, that I cannot think, as has been alleged, that 

 gentlemen would object to be nominated. It was also, when formerly 

 discussed, objected that it would lead to combinations of exhibitors 



