The brief series of Christmas Shows which begin at Norwich, are
continued at Birmingham and Edinburgh, and terminate at Islington, have
not presented any feature of very special importance, but the interest
in them has been well maintained and the quality of the exhibits up to
the average. The Norwich Show has for many years been the first, and it
is always a very pleasant one, though it would be still more so if the
final phase of the judging, when the champion prizes are awarded, was
not unduly prolonged, a number of visitors being obliged to leave the
Hall to catch their trains before the prizes have been allotted. The
exhibitors included, as usual, His Majesty the King, who sent several
entries of cattle from Sandringham with which he was moderately
successful, and two or three pens of Southdowns, with one of which he
won the championship for the best pen of sheep in the Show. This same
pen of Southdowns, it may be added, went on to Birmingham, and, after
winning first prize in its class, was given the reserve number for the
championship, the actual winners being a pen of Hampshire Down lambs
from the flock of Mr. James Flower, who is almost invincible with this
breed. But the rubber game had to be played at Islington, and the King’s
Southdowns came victorious out of the contest, for they were first in
their class, first for the cup given to the best of the breed, first for
the champion plate given to the best pen of short-woolled sheep, and
finally took the Prince of Wales’ challenge cup for the best pen of
sheep in the whole Show. As His Majesty won this cup last year with
another pen of Southdowns, it has now become his absolute property.
To revert to the Norwich Show, in the contest for the champion prize for
cattle the issue was narrowed down to Mr. E. T. Learner’s cross-bred
(Shorthorn and Aberdeen Angus) heifer Luxury and one of the many good
animals which Mr. R. W. Hudson sent from Danesfield. The verdict was
given in favour of Mr. Learner’s cross-bred. Mr. Learner’s heifer and
Mr. Hudson’s exhibit both went on to Birmingham, where, by the way, the
Norwich judgment was reversed, Mr. Hudson’s beast being greatly admired
for its admirable quality. The Norwich Show always has three or four
classes for the red-polled breeds, and the competition is not altogether
confined to the Eastern counties, for Sir Walter Corbet generally sends
some of his Shropshire herd, and he did so with marked success on the
present occasion, his principal opponent being Lord Amherst of Hackney.
Not a few of the Norwich exhibits went on to Birmingham, where the Show
opened, as usual, on the Saturday week following Norwich, that is to
say, on November 25th, and there was a notable gathering of Midland
agriculturists, though Lord Bradford, the President for the year, was
not well enough to attend, while by a melancholy coincidence the late
President, Sir Henry Wiggin, had died a few days before the Show. The
most salient feature of the Birmingham Show was the unbroken success of
His Majesty the King, who sent from Windsor ten entries of Herefords,
Shorthorns, and Devons, and won with them four first prizes, a second,
and two thirds, while in addition to this he was awarded three special
prizes for the best of each breed, and the President’s prize of £25 for
the best of the exhibits in the cattle classes. After all these awards
had been made the contest for the three challenge cups began, being
presented by Messrs. Elkington, Thorley, and Webb, for the best animal
in the Show; but while the Elkington challenge up has no restriction as
to breeder, it is stipulated in the conditions of the two others that
they shall be given to animals which have not passed out of their
breeders’ hands. This did not prove any obstacle to the King winning all
three, for he makes it a rule to exhibit only home-bred stock, so that
the Hereford steer, the Shorthorn heifer, and the Devon steer, which had
each been proclaimed the best of its breed, were all three in the ring
to compete for these valued trophies. They had to meet two or three very
fine specimens of the Aberdeen Angus and Shorthorn cross-breds,
exhibited by Mr. R. W. Hudson and by Mr. Learner, to which reference has
already been made in connection with the Norwich Show. The judges,
however, gave the preference to the King’s trio, and, after eliminating
the Devon, they dwelt for a long time between the two others, their
ultimate decision being in favour of the Hereford steer, which scaled
nearly 18 cwt., and was preferred to the Shorthorn heifer. Thus the King
won all that was possible in the cattle section at Bingley Hall.
While it was in progress the Scottish National Show was being held in
Edinburgh, and the principal winner there was a heifer of the
Aberdeen-Angus breed, which, as will be seen below, not only carried all
before her at Edinburgh, but followed up this by winning the
Championship at Islington. This heifer, bred, and still owned, by
Colonel McInroy, C.B., of the Burn, Edzell, has a remarkable record, and
at the age of two years nine months her live weight was just over 16
cwt., which for an Aberdeen-Angus is very good. Burn Bellona, as this
heifer was called, was much admired at Edinburgh, but it was scarcely to
be expected that she would secure so complete a triumph at Islington,
especially with such a strong opposition to face as she had in the
Norwich and Birmingham champions, to say nothing of the King’s other
representatives. His Majesty, strongly as he has been represented on
previous occasions, has never had so many entries at Islington as this
winter, he having sent nineteen head of cattle, sheep, and pigs from
Sandringham, several cattle from Windsor, two of Aberdeen-Angus from
Ballater. It was generally expected that His Majesty would follow up his
Bingley Hall triumph, an impression which was strengthened when it was
seen that the Hereford and the Shorthorn had won the Cup as the best of
their breeds. These prizes had been won before the arrival of the King,
who had, at considerable personal inconvenience, arranged, upon the eve
of a political crisis, to come up and see the Show. His Majesty was
received on his arrival from Sandringham, shortly before three o’clock,
by Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, Lord Tredegar, the President
of the Smithfield Club, Sir Walter Gilbey, Chairman of the Royal
Agricultural Hall Company, the Earl of Coventry, Sir R. Nigel Kingscote,
and Sir John Swinburne, and he paid a visit to the avenues in which the
Devons, Herefords, and Shorthorns were placed, these being the classes
in which his most successful exhibits were located. After he had
inspected them, his pens of Southdown sheep, one of which had already
been awarded the Championship, were brought out for the King to see, and
not the least interesting feature of his visit was the presentation of
some of the New Zealand football players, who had been invited to lunch
by the Council of the Smithfield Club, and who could scarcely have
anticipated being accorded such an honour. His Majesty’s engagements did
not admit of his remaining to see the championship for cattle decided,
the judges having been so much retarded by the even quality of the
competitors, and had he been able to stay, he would not have had the
satisfaction of witnessing a repetition of the Birmingham triumph, as
the Hereford steer and the Shorthorn heifer were both beaten by Colonel
McInroy’s Aberdeen-Angus heifer referred to above. Moreover, the
Hereford steer, which had been placed in front of the Shorthorn heifer,
had lost flesh a trifle since Birmingham, and their respective positions
were reversed, the Shorthorn heifer being the “runner up.”
There was a general meeting of the Club on Tuesday, when Lord Tredegar,
whose elevation in the peerage will give general satisfaction, took the
chair for the last time, and will be succeeded by the Prince of Wales,
whose term of office now begins, so that all bodes well for the
Smithfield Club Show in 1906.