LIGHT HORSE JUDGING

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21623, 6 November 1935, Page 17

LIGHT HORSE JUDGING

TO THE BDITOB OF TVS PUSS. Sir,—One must voice approbation of the courage and common sense of your correspondent, Mr J. Parkin, whose letter on "Light Horse Judging" appeared in your columns some time ago. It is surprising that no other correspondence upon this subject was fortbjeoming, as his very pertinent

letter voices the feelings of both spectators and exhibitors at the various A. and P. shows at this time of the year. The fault seems to be that so many" of the judges are recommended merely because they have been prominent members of some A. and P. Association, irrespective of whether they are, or ever have been, horsemen in the true sense of the word. This remark, of course, does not apply to all judges, but, again, many of these gentlemen who may have the ability to judge, so often spoil things by flagrant favouritism. It does not necessarily follow that persons of prominence own better animals than the ordinary horse lover, who has in many cases made a lifelong study of horses and is proud to own a worthy exhibit. This also applies to the cob and pony sections, where our embryo horsemen and horsewomen love to display their skill in riding, always with the faint hope that the best might win. Last year the Mackenzie A. and P. Association showed enterprise which could be copied to the satisfaction of exhibitors and public by securing judges for their cob and pony and light horse sections from as far afield as Marlborough, the result being very gratifying to,the public generally. This association should be commended and followed. I would entreat all horse lovers to concentrate on the judging rings at the coming shows with unbiased minds and make an attempt to pick the winners before the judge has given his verdict. This appears to me a worthy subject for discussion, or, sooner or later, the humble entrant, with a good animal, may consider the game not worth the candle.—Yours, etc., MAY THE BEST WIN. November 4, 1935.

POINTS FROM OTHER LETTERS "Traveller" disagres with Colonel G. J. Smith about lack of organisation in disembarking passengers at Vancouver. He says that when he travelled that way he had everything completed inside 20 minutes. He arranged with, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to send his heavy luggage in bond to the Atlantic port and retained two suitcases. On arrival at Vancouver he passed to the examining shed, where the luggage was marked and he had it in a taxi on the way to his hotel inside 20 minutes. His experience is that New Zealand is the slowest and altogether the worst country to enter from a customs point of view. W. D. Thompson differentiates between clairvoyance and mental telepathy. He gives Sir William Crookes's definition of telepathy as "the power to transmit thoughts from one mind to another without the agency of the recognised organs of sense." "The term 'clairvoyance,'" says Mr Thompson, "is applied to the power some individuals have of seeing objectively, scenes and persons (both incarnate and discarnate) beyond the range of vision of normal sight. An arbitrary line can be drawn between these two by separating them into objective and subjective forms of phenomena, but even so, in innumerable cases it is hard to say whether the clairvoyant's vision is really objective, or whether it is merely a mental picture. Strictly speaking, the term "clairvoyance'' should be applied only to the former, but there are so many grades of relationship between the material and spiritual sight tltat it is practically impossible in many cases to determine which is which."