JUDGING IN AMERICA.

In 1900, I am not afraid to say, we had not more than two judges capable of judging a small show correctly all the way through. To-day we have a great many breeders who could do very fair work, and would not make many mistakes if the classes were not too big for them. Of course, the fact must be recognised here, as elsewhere, that a judge improves with experience, and I hazard the opinion that the fewer cats he owns the better he may judge, though I personally prefer for my own stock a judge who has at some time bred the variety. I cannot say that I have found the judging of cats in America a very difficult matter, up to now, for classes have been, as a rule, small, and in most cases the winners stood out well; and though, no doubt, there have been differences of opinion upon what I have done, I have not had many qualms of conscience over past doings. The weakest spot in the American cat shows has been the tendency of owners to over-estimate the value of their cats in many cases, and the disappointment of defeat comes sometimes severely upon very enthusiastic people; but there is no hope for a fancier who cannot suffer defeat and come again for some more, so I think we need not waste our tears upon these, for they were never destined to succeed. Want of quality is another weak spot we have to contend with, and this often comes from the eye not having been trained to the best. Size as a factor of beauty is another fetish we have to destroy with a rude hand, but our people are apt pupils, and those who stay in the game are very anxious to be on the right track, though it will take some a few years longer to learn the give and take, to withdraw gracefully, and to admit that there may be another side to a question. My own position to-day is that I am as much interested in the fancy as ever, but I do not find the necessity for doing the work in so severe a manner now, for there are so many capable of carrying on what has been done, and the future is pretty well assured; so that for the health of the fancy at large it is better that too much should not be monopolised by two or three pairs of hands, and some of us old-timers who began in 1893 and 1894, and before that, are allowing the younger blood to take its share of the tasks.

In judging cats, as in other stock, it seems to me that one of the greatest criterions as to the success of our efforts as judges is the success in many cases of cats or kittens bred from those we have put in the front rank. And only time can tell the force of what we have done. If in the future I see cats doing as well as they are this season, bred from those I have put in the prize list, and judged by other judges, then shall I feel repaid for work done in the past, and not until then can I be sure I have been right. It would be impossible to go back through the last eight years and their troubles and experiences, and though in many cases I know I may have been called a “beast,” I hope posterity will say I was a “just beast.”

It might be as well to refer to the score card to show where in cases such as we have had to contend with it has done a great deal of good. One hundred points make perfection, and the question arose in one’s mind before using the score card as to whether the budding exhibitor would be for ever crushed by finding that the cherished one came out of the score card ordeal with about 75 points instead of the possible 100; so that when it has been selected by a club for a show I have warned the owners of the danger; but to the everlasting credit of our fanciers I may say that I have not had to register a kick because of a low score, and many—even novices—were more than pleased with a score of eighty. If I may point out a failing in English judging—and we see the same thing here in the dog fancy—the criticism is left to the reporter, who has not the time or the opportunity for finding the real faults nor the space at command to do justice to the exhibits.

The task of explaining to exhibitors why their animals have lost is not an agreeable one; but in a land like this, where nearly all have been beginners, this has been an absolute necessity, and the dose must be swallowed or no progress is made, and, as in the case of the score card, no doubt the having to give a reason is likely to keep us from giving prizes to one point at the expense of all the rest. Two great factors we have had to consider here are type and quality, the two weakest points in our cats; and if we had run to extremes in eye colour we should have made no progress in type or perhaps quality. Great stress has been laid upon markings in tabby cats, with very good results, and we are rapidly accumulating a good lot of tabbies—especially in the Detroit district, where tabbies are popular, which is a thing to be grateful for. We have never thought it well here to discourage the orange tabbies for the sake of unmarked orange, and we have some very good orange tabbies whose number is on the increase; and if the plain orange can range up beside the orange tabbies, all well and good. But I shall be an advocate, if there is a danger of one hurting the other, of making separate classes, for we do not want to drive out the good orange tabbies, which are very popular, and the average American who loves an orange cat at the present moment does not care whether it is marked or unmarked.

Cats with white hair are much in favour, as is the case with Madame Ronner and the Continental fanciers; and, if so, there seems to be no reason for discouraging them, and we may as well first make up our minds to the fact that, in trying to force English ideas down the throats of the people of another country with too violent a hand, we may do a lasting injury to the fancy at large.

Another thing I might refer to, and that is that the average American exhibitor does not favour giving prizes to long-haired cats when out of coat, and the strength of the fancy and its future popularity lies in presenting to the public the cats in their best dress, and this mostly is the only logical way we can give out the principal prizes and appeal to the good sense of those who come to see them; for the general public, when not experts, can only judge from appearance. The strength in England lies in the fanciers themselves, who have the opportunity of seeing so much more and of learning. Our future here lies in being able to gather recruits by presenting the cats to them in as perfect a form as possible, and therefore we have to depend upon the public. Our shows have to be in the winter, when the cats are in coat, and the dangers of exposure to the weather are very great, all of which is a good deal to the disadvantage of the fancier.

A great deal of interest has been taken in England in the subject of blue cats in America, which are often called Maltese, and really among the rank and file of the public this is the name they go by. So celebrated had some strains become that off-coloured cats bred from these cats are sometimes called Maltese, and the idea seemed to have gained considerable ground that this was a separate breed; but evidence of this fact is very much lacking in most parts, and in travelling over a good deal of the country and finding them thousands of miles apart, I must confess that I have never been able to trace the origin of these cats nor to find out any reason for their numbers.

I have been led to think that they are the same, or were the same, in the beginning as the blue Russian or Archangel cat, and that they were brought to this country many years ago, and that the name was given them by sailors or others. The tradition possibly has been handed down in the same way as the name of Angora has remained fastened to the long-hairs with the average public here, and will be many more years in dying, for the band of fanciers who know better is but a drop in the bucket in this great land. No doubt the name of Maltese moved with the cat to the west as families moved, for in the case of native-born Americans the migration west has been often gradual: thus some moved, we will say, as far as Ohio, their sons and daughters moved to Illinois, and the next generation went still further, and the much-prized Maltese cat drifted on with his name.

Probably a good many of the so-called Maltese are just blue specimens of the ordinary short-haired cat; and, in fact, there has never been anyone of my acquaintance who had any ideas as to points or type; but the colour was the feature to be looked at. We find Maltese cats of the short and cobby type besides the long and more extended species, but the latter predominate, and I am inclined to agree with some English judges that the fairly long cats with a cleaner cut head are the purer type of blue cat. On some, when judging, I find very good heads with clean-cut features, round, well-developed cheeks, with fairly long bodies, very even in colour. No doubt the preponderance of blue cats before the advent of the cat shows was largely owing to the selection of blue kittens in the litters, which left a great many blue sires to roam the streets by night and sire blue kittens.

In many cases I have found families who had never heard of cat shows that had strains of blue or Maltese cats, and took pride in keeping the strain as pure as possible. And one great factor is that the blues have always had the name of being excellent mousers, and were valued as such. Besides this supposed strong point in their composition, they have always had a reputation for great intelligence and of being good-tempered and reliable about the house with children and young folk.

Like the Plymouth Rock fowl, the Maltese cat has been one of the institutions of the American continent, and there seems to be some ground for believing the original tradition connected with the name Maltese—that the Maltese cat came from the East and was treasured as something out of the common, and fell among friends. Some are light and some are dark, and some have the white spot on the chest, but on most there is not much evidence of tabby markings; neither do you see this in the young kittens in the same way as the Russians are said to be at an early age. I have seen five and six pure light blue kittens in a litter, and the father and mother were both of the same colour.

In quite out-of-the-way places you will, upon going to judge the short-hairs, find some blues, and often with deep brown eyes; and if I were to make a comparison between the average American blue and what I saw in England as Russians, I should say the American cats are mostly lighter in colour, and do not have quite so glossy coats. Perhaps if taken up and selected for a few generations, these features would come out more strongly.

One of the worst features of the popularity of the Maltese, from the point of view of the breeder of long-hairs, has been that the blue colour has been so common that when the blue Persian was introduced he was not, in this country, considered peculiar. Among the Maine cats, so-called, the blue or Maltese colour was not at all uncommon, and plenty of this colour are to be found. Some people who bred them obtained their stock from Paris, and no doubt the Chartreuse blue of olden times had a good deal to do with many of these.

The oldest blue cat I ever saw was one reared on a farm; he had always lived out of doors, more or less, and was the farm cat. His age was twenty-four years, and as he was born at the same time as the oldest son, who was also twenty-four years old, the evidence was pretty good that the age was correct.

It must not be supposed from this that blue cats are so numerous as to overshadow other colours in North America, for we have short-hairs in all the common colours, and lots of them; but, still, the fact is pretty evident that short-haired blues have been a popular colour for a long time, and there are so many that everyone, whether cat fancier or not, is quite used to the colour. The native-born American, as a rule, calls this cat the Maltese, and the name, as I said before, will cling for many a day to come. In judging these cats, I must say that the proportion of small or short, round-headed cats is small, and that these—in America, at least—are not the most common type of blue cat; and I, personally, in judging have usually inclined to the more lengthy cat with longer face and bigger ears, though I think it is possible to find plenty without absolutely mean-looking heads. We do not want a ferret’s head on a cat, for there is a happy medium.

WILD SPECIES.

We cannot leave the American exhibition cats without saying a word upon the wild species, some of which find their way into the show rooms on more than one or two occasions. Of course, the cougar or mountain lion—our biggest species—is out of court on account of his size; but still, if history is to be believed, this fine animal was never injurious to man, and has not been known in recent times to attack man, though he is fitted by size and strength to do a great deal of damage. The next in order is the lynx, and though this animal is pictured as very fierce, there is as much evidence to show, in other ways, that if taken young and domesticated, the lynx is amenable to reason and is very intelligent, full of humour, and not afflicted with excessive nervousness. I have seen specimens exhibited, and one in particular that was the constant playmate of a little child; and this cat spent four days in a show playing most of the time with all the children that came along, and was the coolest and most unconcerned cat in the hall. Evidently the lynx shares the great brain power of the cat family which those who are well acquainted with cats are willing to concede to them, added to a calmness of temperament foreign to some of our so-called domesticated breeds that ought to have inherited by now, perhaps, more savoir faire under show conditions.

When on a ranch in the wilds with a few cats and dogs, where quarters were limited, I could never see that there was a natural antipathy between cats and dogs, for the bitches would rear kittens and vice versâ, and the friendship was great between them—so much so that they would play together for hours, and there was no danger in leaving dogs and cats together, shut up in the house, when we were absent. In later times I have had twenty cats or more running around with as many dogs, and never had a cat killed, and only two or three occasions when any trouble started. The supposed antipathy between cat and dog seems to be an acquired taste in a certain measure, and personally I do not believe in the antipathy being natural or a fact, for the two will live together in peace if not set upon each other by man.

From a few observations I believe the lynx is capable of domestication; of course, his size precludes his being numerous, but in this variety there are possibilities as yet not sufficiently tried out.

Of other cats, in contradistinction to this, we may mention that beautiful cat the ocelot. This cat is fairly plentiful, and is not very difficult to obtain when young; and though they are so handsome and can be reared and left to run about the house till a year old, as they arrive at maturity they become what the ladies call “impossible.” The ocelot with increasing age grows hopelessly savage, and will kill anything put in his cage that he is capable of handling, and even to his keeper he is a problem. This evidence is not hearsay, but is from one who tried for a long time to do something with these beautiful animals. They are, when in condition, one of our handsomest specimens of the cat tribe.

One of the most fascinating little cats I ever judged was a little Marguay cat from Brazil, exhibited by the Zoological Society of Chicago, and though quite small and delicate-looking, it seemed perfectly healthy, and, as in the case of the lynx, was as tame and affectionate as possible, and seemed delighted to be noticed and handled. I cannot help thinking that if obtainable and kept pure this would make one of the most beautiful of exhibition cats. Small, of a reddish-brown colour, and clearly spotted all over, with beautifully shaped and small ears, which are black-and-white, this cat is gentle, sweet, sizeable, and possible as a pet. I have never seen it excelled by anything among the cat tribe; and having handled this cat a good many times during the show, I may say it was one of the tamest and best-natured cats I ever came across in the show room, and certainly the most beautiful short-haired cat possible to imagine.

On one or two occasions we have had Australian cats exhibited, and they were funny little beasts, sitting up like a squirrel, and with much the same shape of head. When genuine they are most quaint, but do not seem to live long here. A very clever fake was carried out with these cats at some of the early shows—or, rather, I should not say with these cats, but an imitation of these cats. When the supply became limited, someone became clever enough to augment the number by shaving the long and ragged native short-hairs, and so well was it done that they not only won prizes, but on one occasion one was bought by a judge after winning, when to his purchaser’s disgust a month or two later he turned out to be an ordinary yellow tom with his coat on!

The Australian cat fell into disfavour after a few of these experiences, and it has not been possible to resuscitate him.

We often hear of the Pampas cat of South America being in certain catteries, but so far at the shows none have been produced, and I am inclined to think these also are of the impossible brigade on account of their savage disposition. It is a pity that some enterprising fancier does not try to tame these wild species.

Our English readers will, no doubt, wonder at a good many things we do in America; but, never having had the experience of our conditions, they would not be able to appreciate what it is that keeps the fancy back. In the first place, on this continent anything except poultry shows and dog shows is an unknown quantity, and many of those who take up the cat fancy with enthusiasm are perfectly innocent of any show experiences, and have few to teach them; so that until a show or two has been held in a certain neighbourhood our affairs are apt to be a little mixed. For instance, the common idea of a tortoiseshell cat is as often as not a heavily marked tabby of the brown tabby persuasion, or it may be an orange tabby, or it may be a mixture of many colours. Until a show has been held in a town, very few of the inhabitants know whether they have good cats or not, and they are as likely to bring the bad as the good. The idea has prevailed to a large extent that it is very expensive to get up shows, and so the only opportunity made use of has been when a poultry show is being held and the promoters of this are asked for a little space, which they may grant, as the cats are found to be very conducive to a gate; but the drawback of this arrangement is that in most cases the poultry people want to make as much money as possible, and so keep the cats penned for four or five days, which in many cases means death to the cats.

The cost of the hall being so great, and the prize money being consequently kept down to try to balance things, with the entry fees also put away up, which, all added to the travelling long distances and the added expense of hotel bills, makes the lot of the American cat exhibitor not too rosy, and it is something to wonder at that the fancy has ever developed at all.

Distance from place to place is another factor, and when you read in England of the New York and then the Chicago show the week after, you hardly realise that they are 1,000 miles apart, and that if living in New York and you want to show in Chicago it may cost you £20 in travelling expenses alone.

Another thing show committees have to face is the expense of the judge, and the difficulty of finding suitable sires within reasonable distance is one of the many drawbacks with which American fanciers have to contend.