SOME DIFFICULTIES IN FLOWER-SHOW SCHEDULES. 499 



2. A Class for "A Basket of Vegetables." 

 There were several entries for this; all the competitors but one 



showed their produce in boxes, and the box-staged vegetables happened 

 to be best, and got all the prizes awarded. Thereupon the one basket 

 exhibitor lodged a protest — and rightly — but was told that " basket " 

 simply meant a " receptacle of any kind " ! Now, if that was meant, 

 why did not the Schedule say so? The word "basket" has a 

 definite and specific meaning in horticulture, and in our language, and 

 cannot possibly be interpreted to mean " any " receptacle, which 

 might be a tin-pot or a basin. All the exhibitors showing in boxes 

 ought, in all fairness, to have been disqualified. 



3 . My next example deals with the difference of " or " from 



" AND." 



These two small words are the innocent cause of repeated difficulty. 

 A class reads, "Six vases of cut flowers — indoor and outdoor." 

 In this class an exhibitor staged outdoor flowers only, and being 

 disqualified, argued that " and " implied a choice of either. He 

 was wrong. The word " or " would, of course, have allowed the 

 alternative, but the use of the word " and " demanded the inclusion 

 of some at least of both in the exhibit. And further, if either one 

 or both were intended, both " and " and " or " should be used with 

 a stroke between them, thus, and/ or. 



i 4. Misdirection by Committees. 



Letters of complaint frequently reach me under some such circum- 

 stance as this: A is not an amateur according to the rules of a 

 certain local society. But he makes representations to the Secretary 

 or to the Committee, which lead them to sanction his showing as 

 an amateur. This is, of course, all unknown beforehand to the other 

 exhibitors. He wins the first prize, and B — my correspondent — and 

 0 and D, who are all three undoubtedly amateurs under the rules of 

 the society concerned, do not. Can you wonder they protest? 



What reasons the Committee had for deciding as they did, and 

 permitting A to show as an amateur, they themselves know; but it 

 illustrates the folly and injustice of making rules and not abiding by 

 them rigidly. A may be said, not unnaturally, to want to get some 

 advantage from which the wording of the Schedule, strictly interpreted, 

 excludes him, possibly somewhat unfairly. The Committee recognize 

 this, and instead of altering the rule which bears unfairly on him, 

 make an exception in his favour and allow him to enter the desired 

 class. B, C, and D lose, and feel that a great injustice has been done 

 them, and jealousies and heart-burnings are aroused which it may take 

 j years to allay. And so, because the Committee has not rigidly held 

 I to its Schedule, it finds itself in this unfortunate dilemma. It has 

 violated its own Schedule, has set up what appears to the others to 

 be an unfair competition, and has caused a miscarriage of justice for 

 which there is no remedy. The Committee of a Show is all-powerful, 



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