EXHIBITORS' GENTLE ARTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2730, 11 July 1906, Page 32

EXHIBITORS' GENTLE ARTS.

The "trimming" of a bird for the show (says the Sydney Daily Telegraph) is an unpardonable offence — if you are found out. The question of the extent to which "trimming"' is pardonable — according to the moral code of exhibitors and judges — is an interesting one. At the Western Suburbs show we found a prominent breeder, exhibitor, and judge loudly denouncing a judge for giving a card to a bird the comb of which— as far as the evidence of the eye went — had been cut. Said he, "I object to a man getting a card for a bird when he cuts ite comb and makes such a botch of the job. It looks bad when everybody can see that it has been cut. I don't mind improving a bird myself, but I do the job properly." With this gentleman the offence lay ,in being found out, and he expressed his intention of seeing that an example was mad© of the man who was such a poor hand as to hold himself open to detection. And probably nine exhibitors out of ten see no harm in "improving" a bird to the extent of plucking a few faulty or superfluous feathers or removing- other slight defects. Certain it is that some of our best fanciersmen who are most worthy of respect — will freely admit that they now and then remove a little fault from an otherwise good bird. Nevertheless, according to the laws of all poultry clubs and societies, indulgence in these arts renders an -exhibitor liable to the humiliation of being bianded as guilty of fraudulent practices which disqualification inrolies.

A few days after the same Western Suburbs ahow on© of the judges, in chatting to us, remarked : "I knocked A's (another prominent breeder, exhibitor, and judge) cockerel out because it had feathers on its legs. He said he had not noticed the feathers until I passed the cockerol, but B (yet another prominent breeder, exhibitor, and judge) pulled the feathers out, and at tne show yesterday C (-till another prominent breeder, exhibitor, and jiulgei gave the cockerel third. X spice of interest is lp-nt to tne«e incidonU by the fact that if a ca=e of. trimming wore reported to a poultry club, all five of theso gentlemen would be entitled to -sit on the committee that « ou ' d ha\e to decide what penally should be imposed upon the offender. Of cour.-e, the cornmitteemen of any other poultry organi-a-tion might find themselves in much the. =ame inconsistent position, but the obvious answer to the conundrum. "When is faking not faking?" is, "When it is not 'officially found out."