A Judge! 27 



third. Further inquiry might elicit the fact that the person 

 so laying down the law. was an interested party, and had 

 shown a dog (in the same class as that in which he was 

 criticising the awards) as long on the legs and as defective 

 in ribs and loins as a whippet, and was highly indignant 

 that it had not won the cup. Some modern dog show r ers 

 are too clever by half, they have kept terriers a few 

 months, won a prize or two with such as they have 

 purchased, and the next stage sees them figuring in the 

 judging ring. 



Once upon a time a dog judge was believed to be a man 

 of lengthened experience one who had bred, worked, and 

 shown such varieties as were his particular fancy. I have 

 known a man pose as a judge of fox terriers who had 

 never bred one in his life, had never seen a fox in front of 

 hounds, had never seen a terrier go to ground, had never 

 seen either otter, weazel, or foulmart outside the glass case 

 in which they rested on the wall in a bar parlour, and had 

 not even seen a terrier chase a rabbit. His slight experi- 

 ence of working a terrier had been had at a surreptitious 

 badger bait in the stable of a common beerhouse, and a 

 violent attack on a dozen mangy rats by a mongrel terrier 

 in an improvised pit in the bed-room of the landlord of the 

 same hostel. However, matters may be better managed 

 now in this respect, for in nine cases out of ten a man 

 must be a member of a fox terrier club before he is asked 

 to " judge," though the qualification consists only in 

 punctual payment of his entrance fee and annual subscrip- 

 tion. Still, the popularity of the fox terrier has not yet 

 begun to wane, though less respect for pretty colour is 

 apparent, and the fashion as to his shape and a general 

 appearance has changed somewhat. 



