THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, March 3, 1857. 
386 
so that your friend and your own opinion must differ widely 
from the gentlemen before named. Pray give me the name 
of that gentleman who wrote to you, that the world may 
know who is right and who is wrong. The cock in the said pen 
had won eleven first prizes from the hands of Messrs. Baily, 
Cottle, Jennens, Pulleine, Bond, and others, as well as from 
Mr. Hewitt. The hens cost me, instead of 12s. each, 16s., 
and if you can find some equal to them I will give you 
double that sum for them. I have no doubt that, in a 
general way, I give as much for my poultry as any other 
exhibitor, and probably keep them as well when I have got 
them; therefore, why should I not win sometimes ? You 
say that you have heard many amusing statements which 
have been made about my purchases through Mr. Hewitt, 
and their after-success. This, again, is also false, and with¬ 
out the least foundation. I admit you may have heard it, 
but must here beg to know the names of those who told you. 
I can say most positively that the pen before named, and a 
pen of the same kind I bought at the Salop Show in 1853, 
are the two only pens I ever •purchased, or had purchased 
for me, at any Exhibition, and I can say with confidence 
that the name of the party from wliom I have my Ham- 
burghs neither yourself nor Mr. Hewitt knows. 
****** 
“ I have no hesitation in saying that most likely I should 
have received stronger expressions than those of which you 
complain if I had acted towards you as you have done 
towards me. 
“ If exhibitors are to take notice of a jocose remark made 
at a Poultry Show, and attach an evil meaning to it, the 
poultry world will soon be at war. For instance, I heard 
many say at Birmingham, ‘ Oh, the Judges know Worrall’s 
old G. S. as well as they know their own mothers,’ or a 
remark very similar. What mischief may be made out of that 
‘ off-hand saying!’ You say you never pay income-tax upon 
the profits of your poultry; neither do I. I never kept them 
for profit any more than yourself, and it seems I cannot keep 
them to ‘ lose by ’ without great unpleasantness. 
“ The very cup alluded to I gave to the Wellington Secre¬ 
tary as a token of my respect for him, who undertook the 
sole management of the Show without a single individual to 
help him. 
“ I am, &c.” 
Commenting upon the whole case Mr. Hewitt ■wrote to us 
as follows on the 10 th of February : — 
“ Mr. Worrall says Mrs. Sharp made a certain assertion. 
This she (as distinctly as language can do) says never 
occurred, whilst Mr. Clmne as positively denies the bare¬ 
faced and glaring imputation. As most undeniably Mrs. 
Sharp never did utter such assertion in my hearing, of course 
I could not contradict it. Mr. Worrall’s statement, that the 
asserted 1 partnership ’ did not * at all affect Mr. Chime’s 
moral character,' is simply a subterfuge to escape the con¬ 
sequences of such ‘cruel and cowardly injustice’ as was mani¬ 
fested at the onset in propagating so untrue an assertion. 
His adduced ‘ authority,’ like his other statements usually, 
fails him in the hour of need, and when most -wanted. As to 
advising Mr. Chune ‘what fowls to purchase, I never did so 
except once, viz., at Shrewsbury, some three or four years 
back, and then they were ‘ claimed ’ by Mr. Chune himself, 
as is ordinarily the custom in such cases. I have advised 
Mr. Worrall also in like circumstances, but never bought any¬ 
thing for either party ; whilst, in compassion to a now self- 
convicted and down-fallen adversary, I will not here add to 
his personal degradation by stating wherein the ‘motive 
causes ’ that led to his unmerited persecutions of myself 
have arisen, more particularly as they would have the most 
direct tendency to injure ‘ the poultry fancy.’ I will, there¬ 
fore, rather leave him to his own mental cogitations, which 
will strike home enough in all conscience; but must simply 
add, if my assumed ‘ friendship ’ for Mr. Chune was 
really sincere, according to Mr. Worrall’s own statement— 
‘ that the fowls were not worth the money ’—it proves, even to 
the most obtuse intellect, that mine must indeed have been a 
most unprecedented mode of evincing my personal interest 
in Mr. Chune as a friend and ‘ partner.' 
****** 
_ “ As the whole tenor of Mr. Worrall’s spontaneous aggres¬ 
sion on myself is evidently to indirectly impute that I have 
made the office of Poultry Judge a money-getting concern, 
I at once fearlessly appeal to the many Committees through¬ 
out the kingdom, who, when asking me by letter the sum 
expected for my services in that unenviable capacity, re¬ 
ceived replies tantamount to the following:—‘Not being 
engaged in either business or profession I have never made 
the office of Poultry Judge one of pecuniary consideration. 
My services, therefore, you are welcome to gratuitously if 
desired, always providing my unavoidable travelling and inn 
expenses are defrayed by the Committee.’ Even these 
latter amounts in some score of cases were also paid by 
myself, and by such Committees have never been refunded 
me. 
“ In conclusion I will only say, that but for a private note 
from one of the Preston Committee stating the aggression, this 
gross libel would, of course,have remained ‘uncontradicted,’ 
because unknown, and such consequent impunity would 
doubtless rather have encouraged to still farther covert 
acts of ‘ cruel and cowardly injustice; ’ and all this entirely 
because the glittering baubles Mr. Worrall pre-hoped for 
were, by my conscientious award, finally found glistening on 
the sideboard of a very much more worthy competitor. 
“ The opponent who meets face to face those he unscru¬ 
pulously condemns is certainly worthy of every respect and 
courtesy; but he who, on the contrary, secretly and wantonly 
blights the character of those he has not moral courage to 
openly assail is only deserving of the most unmitigated 
contempt. This whole affair proves from end to end that 
birthi’ight alone and the possession of broad acres are not 
inseparably the adjuncts of ‘ respectability.’ This must ever 
rest, contrariwise, exclusively with the personal conduct alone 
of the individual himself; nor do I imagine the esteem of 
poultry amateurs generally will be greatly insured by the 
heartless practice of writing private letters of defamation.— 
Edward Hewitt.” 
Other letters passed between Mr. Chune and Mrs. Sharp 
upon the same charge of partnership between Mr. Chune 
and Mr. Hewitt; but as Mrs. Sharp merely repeats, “I 
neither made such an assertion, nor ever heard any one 
else,” these letters need not be published. 
This transaction, coupled with the fact of the endeavour 
.made to bribe Mr. Hewitt not to go as Judge to Preston, as 
was detailed by Mr. Hewitt in our No. 436, and the charge 
then made that Mr. Hewitt was in partnership with Mr. 
Wright, of West Bank, near Runcorn, shows an amount of 
folly and of spite engendered of disappointment that rarely 
has to be recorded. The gentleman who charged Mr. 
Hewitt with being in partnership with Mr. Wright was Mr. 
Tate; but, as he seems ashamed of the part he took in the 
calumny, and assures Mr. Wright, in a letter now before us, 
that he considers Mr. Wright’s “ honour remains un¬ 
blemished,” no more need be said on that charge. 
We join Mr. Wright in hoping “ that this will be the last 
we shall hear of such proceedings; for if successful 
exhibitors are to be subjected to such attacks as these, 
confidence in the Judges, and of all persons connected with 
poultry, will be destroyed, and the interests of the poultry 
fancy will suffer very materially.” 
No one of our readers will dissent from our judgment 
that Mr. Hewitt has been falsely accused, and that the 
accusation was engendered in the hearts of those who found 
that he fearlessly and unbiassedly gave his awards as a Judge. 
Long may he continue to issue such awards ; for were he to 
be driven from officiating as a Judge, exhibitors would lose 
the services and the protection of a truly honest and 
competent authority. 
CRITIQUES ON COMMITTEES AND JUDGES. 
Now that the last of the Shows has taken place, and the 
season of quiet succeeds to that of wild excitement, an old 
poultry amateur may while away a dull hour, and venture to 
send a few lines to your pleasing periodical. Although fond 
[ of the pursuit, and following it everywhere without being an 
exhibitor, I have never ventured either with you or the old 
| Chronicle to intrude myself when better matter claims the 
I space. When in my Wednesday morning reading I come 
