The l illustrated Booh of Poultry . 
[ 70 
some such notice as. “Disqualified on account of fraud in Pen — ,” vve should have a check on 
these practices which, though not total, would be very generally effective ; and every honest 
amateur should join in pressing this upon show committees and judges. Both these are in fault, 
and one of the best judges we have has gone so far as publicly to complain of the supineness of 
committees in cases actually discovered and exposed by his exertions. We have long ceased to 
hope for anything Utopian, and we ask for nothing unreasonable now; but it is not too much, 
surely, to demand that when fraud is detected, judges and committees should show more 
willingness to act than they generally do, and that some penalty should be enforced by those 
who are answerable for the conduct of a show. How far this is the case, the following 
statement by Mr. Hewitt will make plain. In this case a committee was in fault, and the judge 
had done his duty ; but in too many instances lately the judges also have shown a marked 
disinclination to interfere with glaring cases brought to their notice. 
“ After the issue by committees of the customary printed rules against ‘ trimming,’ and which 
are usually expressed in language so simple, uniform, and stringent, it might fairly be anticipated 
that where the judges have, in unpleasant fulfilment of their positive duty, disqualified pens for 
gross violation of the rules thus set forth, the arbitrators might at least confidently rely on the 
concurrence of the committee themselves in support of the decisions — the positive proof lying 
exclusively with the judges. As experience proves, this ofttimes is directly contrary to the fact : 
the committee do not consider their position even then as being obligatory ; they shrink from their 
duty, and thus the disqualification is after all not enforced, or even publicly exposed. 
“ Not long since, at one of the largest shows in the kingdom, my colleagues and myself 
disqualified nearly one-third of the entries in a large class for Dark Brahma pullets, and these 
disqualifications were duly announced by us, and recorded by the committee, at the time of giving 
in the awards. No note whatever was made of any of them in the printed prize list, nor by posting 
“disqualified cards” on the pens, although our especial attention had been, previously to judging, 
directed by the committee to the rule against trimming, and an hour of valuable daylight actually 
lost in the discovery and record of these malpractices. When asked the reason of this omission, 
it was coolly stated, ‘that the committee had just held a meeting on the subject, and it was 
resolved not to make it public, as it might injure future shows’ — adding they found ‘it would be 
far more sensible to bring forward some more modest proposal, than to commit themselves to so 
large and impracticable a scheme.’ A curious incident here followed worth* naming. A gentleman 
well-known for his fixed opposition to ‘trimming,’ in reporting on this very class, stated the best 
pen of pullets was unnoticed ; a remark in which he was fully justified, as these birds were the 
most cleverly though grossly trimmed in the hock-feathers (of both pullets) the judges had ever 
seen, but so well carried out as to be not apparent in the show-pen. 
“ I am quite aware that by some persons the opinion is entertained that if offenders as to 
trimming are dealt with too severely, it might estrange many amateurs who proposed exhibiting 
from entering on the pursuit ; but my own fixed impression is simply this, that if committees 
would be at the trouble of making a few unflinching examples of offenders, the raids of these 
‘ trimmers ’ on the prize lists would no doubt be at the least very considerably controlled, if not 
' held in check altogether. 
“I have always been averse (as now) to ‘trimming,’ as being injurious to the just rights 
of strictly conscientious exhibitors, and was myself the first party who publicly wrote against 
trimming. Having narrowly watched its progress, I can say its advance towards perfection 
is far greater than most persons accredit. Omitting the question of dyed plumage, pins in combs, 
and many other schemes that trimming gives rise to, I easily call to mind the very crude attempt 
