62 THE DOGS OF THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 



or, if equal, a further trial is necessary. On concluding the first round or 

 series of pairs, the judges have only to select the dogs with the highest figure 

 of merit, and place them first, second, and third accordingly, unless the figures 

 of two or more are very near together, when it has been customary to give 

 these animals a further trial ; and at the last Shrewsbury meeting it was very 

 properly, as we think, decided that in all cases the highest two should have 

 this. Under both the Shrewsbury and Kennel Club plans, it often happens 

 that the two best dogs come together in the first or second round ; but in the 

 former plan they may be ultimately placed first and second; whereas in the 

 latter this is. impossible, as the inferior of the two in any particular trial is at 

 once hors de combat. As an illustration of this statement, we may instance the 

 fact that in the first two pointer stakes at Shrewsbury this actually occurred 

 in the second round; whilst in the third and most important it took place in the 

 first, Bang and Dick meeting in that position, and being ultimately declared 

 the first and second prize holders. No doubt a mistake was here committed, 

 which the Kennel Club plan would have prevented ; but this was manifestly a 

 fault in the practice of the judges, and was not incidental to the plan itself, 

 as proved by the general opinion of the spectators declared at the time, and 

 embodied in our report. It occurred in this way. After a long and very 

 tiring day, the first round of the Combermere Stakes had been completed at 

 seven o'clock, and the judges, overlooking the new rule to which we have 

 adverted above, and considering Bang to be undoubtedly the best in the stake, 

 at once declared him the winner, and ordered three dogs, including Dick, beaten 

 by him, to compete next day for second and third prizes. In this decision they 

 overlooked, most probably from inadvertence, Mr. Whitehouse's Eapid, who had 

 just defeated " Rector (the winner there for the last two years) in a short trial, 

 confined to one field, in which Eapid made only the pardonable mistake of 

 flushing a brace of birds the moment he was cast off, and with an undeniably 

 bad scent a mistake also partially condoned by a subsequent good find. Now, 

 if the judges had at once cast up the ' points ' made by Eapid and Bang, they 

 must, according to the Shrewsbury scale, have made them at least equal, and 

 thus insured a second trial, since ' the pace, range, and style ' of Eapid are 

 very superior to those of Bang ; and these qualities are estimated at the high 

 relative value of thirty-five out of one hundred, whereas ' game-finding,' the 

 only quality in which the former could be considered to be excelled by the latter, 

 is valued at twenty. As before remarked, the Kennel Club plan would have 

 prevented this; but in rescuing Eapid from Scylla it would have drawn Dick 

 into Charybdis, since his defeat by Bang would have prevented his getting even 

 the third prize, except under the special provision made by the competitors them- 

 selves in the case of the Horseheath ' Derby,' which, though an improvement 

 on the 'heats' method, renders it still more complicated and tedious. Curiously 

 enough, Eapid endorsed this opinion formed by the spectators at Shrewsbury, by 

 defeating Bang at Horseheath, though, as we all know the variation of these 

 animals on different days, it does not prove that he would have done the same 



