The English Setter 143 
has blood in his veins other than the Duke-Rhcebe-Kate-Laverack.” Of 
course, not being confined to those lines, he could not be a “Llewellyn.” 
That is true enough, but if his breeding had been within those lines the 
decision would have been the other way; a way that Doctor Rowe would 
not have decided it in 1884, when he said Mr. Llewellyn had not a particle 
of reason to claim the Kate line, even admitting the Duke-Rhcebe-Laverack, 
which was merely a borrowed idea from older breeders. 
There is a virtue in choosing your own referee as was done in this 
case, and that reminds us of a still more sudden reversal of opinions. About 
1874 C. J. Foster was supplanted as editor of the Spirit of the Times by 
Mr. J. H. Saunders, who had had little experience in the then important 
duty on sporting papers of deciding wagers. The result was that he 
reversed certain rulings which had for years been taken advantage of by 
clever betters, who knew that the Spirit decided one way and the Clipper 
the reverse. One was the value of a certain throw with dice, and this Mr. 
Saunders changed to the Clipper decision, and the loser came to us about 
it, as we were then on the paper. Our advice was to follow the ruling of 
the new editor and have another question referred to the Spirit. And this 
he did, but in the meanwhile Mr. Saunders had received so many letters 
calling his attention to the “error” that when the question cropped. up 
next week he went back to the old decision, and the twice loser came in hot 
haste with the paper containing it. The advice this time was to mark 
both papers and send them with a note to Mr. George Wilkes, the proprietor, 
with a statement of the facts. This he did, and Wilkes, knowing the im- 
portance of this department of the paper, at once sent his check for the 
hundred dollars, with a strong expression of regret; then he had a talk 
with Mr. Saunders, and the department was turned over to us to run on the 
familiar lines on all questions, except to formally state that the decision 
regarding the man and the squirrel in the tree was to be changed, and after 
that the man never walked around the squirrel, dodging on the opposite 
side, at least in the Spzrit’s columns. 
Had Doctor Rowe been as firm a man as George Wilkes he would have 
got rid of the term Llewellyn, just as George Wilkes stamped out timing 
fractions in trotting records. ‘These would be reported in fifths and other- 
fractions, but the office rule was that quarters could alone be used, and 
every report was changed to conform therewith. Other papers copied 
the Spirit, and sportsmen after that would buy only quarter-second timing 
