194 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



embellish the text ; and there can be no doubt, from 

 the expression of their countenances, that they are the 

 kind of leaders who never swerve from the stern path 

 of duty. What that duty is, and the trials which 

 beset them by the way, every fancier knows too well. 



Fancies are like other cults. For a time they 

 are pursued with a single mind. Then divisions 

 arise, because different and conflicting ideals grow up 

 insensibly, not from any suggestion of the fanciers, 

 but from the nature of things. Some one has a rabbit 

 or a pigeon or a guinea-pig showing marked features 

 differing from the true type, yet so excellent in 

 themselves that he cannot set the animal aside. In 

 time he begins to prize these very differences, and 

 then he gathers his friends, who perhaps have 

 animals like it, and starts a schism. 



Now, in the heavy lines of genuine stock-breeding, 

 such as shorthorns, or Southdowns, or Shire horses, or 

 Tamworth pigs, every one is so absolutely convinced 

 that he is right and every one else wrong that he 

 treats suggestions of change with contempt. In the 

 "fancy" matters are different, or, rather, when the 

 parties differ the dissidence is very marked, and 

 embodied not only in correspondence, but in the 

 permanent pages of the organs devoted to the fancy. 

 On the Turf there are scandals ; in agriculture, 

 questions. In the fancy there are " rows." These 

 rows are generally epoch-making, as they lead to the 

 creation of two lines of some breed instead of one ; 

 so perhaps on the whole they are beneficial. Every 

 one hurls himself into the fray and does his level 



