flejwrt  to  the  General  Meeting.  xxxiii 
to  qualify  Imnsclf  for  the  duties  and  details  of  that  department ; 
and  Mr.  Jonas,  of  Icklcton,  in  Cambridgeshire,  has  accepted  the 
appointment  of  a steward  of  cattle  at  the  country  meetings  of 
the  Society,  in  the  place  of  Mr.  Kinder,  who,  after  a long  period 
of  valuable  services  to  the  Srcicty,  retires  this  year  by  rotation 
from  that  office.  The  Council  have  again  resorted  to  the  same 
inode  of  appointing  the  judges  for  implements  and  stock  as  that 
of  last  }car,  namely,  by  requesting  the  members  at  large  of  the 
Society  to  favour  them,  at  or  before  the  present  General  Meet- 
ing, with  the  names  of  parties  proposed  by  them  as  judges,  anil 
on  whose  l>ehalf  each  proposer  shall  be  ready  to  certify,  on  his 
personal  knowledge,  that  they  are  in  every  respect  qualified  and 
wdhng  to  act  as  Judges  in  the  particular  classes  for  which  they 
may  be  respectively  recommended,  and  that  they  are  unconnected 
with  any  exhibitor  of  stock  or  maker  of  implements,  and  have  no 
direct  personal  interest  in  the  stock  exhibited,  as  breeders  of  any 
of  the  animals  on  which  they  may  be  called  upon  to  adjudicate; 
and  by  referring  these  nominations  to  Special  Committees,  who 
will  select  and  recommend  to  the  Council  the  most  fit  persons,  in 
their  opinion,  to  fill  respectively  the  office  of  Judge  in  the  par- 
ticular departments  and  classes  of  the  Show.  The  Council,  how- 
ever, feeling,  ns  they  do  deeply,  how  much  the  character  of  the 
Society,  and  the  value  of  its  prizes,  dej  end  on  the  talent, 
experience,  and  integrity  of  the  Judges  by  whom  the  awards  are 
made,  and  from  whose  decision  there  is  no  appeal,  arc  fully 
sensible  of  the  imperfection  attendant  on  all  the  modes  hitherto 
adopted  for  their  nomination,  selection,  and  appointment;  and 
they  arc  accordingly  most  anxious  to  receive  and  adopt  any  means 
that  may  be  suggested  to  them,  by  which  every  just  cause  of 
suspicion  and  complaint,  on  the  part  of  the  exhibitors,  may  be 
obviated  for  the  future.  The  position  of  the  Western  District, 
and  the  strong  desire  to  profit  by  the  means  of  agricultural 
improvement  with  which  the  presence  of  the  Society  has  hitherto 
been  accompanied  ; the  direct  communication  by  railway,  from 
every  part  of  the  kingdom,  to  its  different  chief  towns,  and  by  sea 
to  convenient  ports  on  its  northern  and  southern  coasts  ; the  \aried 
VOL.  xr. 
c 
