May 13.
It is a relief to be able to write about dogs without, fear of a visit from the Court Marshal with a writ to appear and answer a charge of contempt of Court, or to be chal-Tenged with having trodden on sensitive toes. Shanghai's annual Dog Show is to be held next Saturday, but it is free of the incubus of pari-mutuals, sweepstakes, and company. dividends, and so it will not be productive of any arguments save those between the dogs themselves, and the exhibitors and Judges—arguments which are common to all dog shows, throughout the world, and without which the shows probably would lose half their attractiveness. The "North-China Daily News" can speak authoritatively and proudly of the Dog Show and the China Kennel Club which has grown out of it, "for it was from the flirtations of the paper with the idea of the former that there came the conception of the show. Over a Space of murly years, this paper made frequent appeals Shanghai to complete sts sporting calendar by holding a dog show, and finally, without any notice, a dozen of the leading' sportsmen got together and held a dog show within ten days of making up their minds to-do so! That was some nine or ten years ago, and the shows have continued ever since, harely financial successes, but certainly popular success They were crudely affairs at first, with a who held levees in the offices of the ""North-China Daily News" which" were attended by dozens of inexperienced exhibitors and scores of dogs of mysterious and wonderful breeding, which he cheerfully and bare-facedly, classified, so 2s to gain_ the dollars for entrance fees.
Jogues were made up and accounts kept on the backs of envelopes, or in the back of a head, but, with the strong backing of his sporting associates, the shows were carried on. Now the secretaryship has passed to a business man who runs it with filing cabinets, rubber stamps, minute-books, and ledgers. Out of it, too, has grown the China Kennel Club, with a rapidly expanding membership, and affix with the English Kennel *b—the supreme authority the world of dogs. So Shanghai sportsmen have something. of which they may well be proud, and it is to be hoped they will continue to back the shows.
The founders had their own reasons for keeping the show "a family
were faced each year with the affair. possibility of a dead loss and they were too proud to turn over a bankrupt concern to people who had not had managerial experience. However, they took careful note of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.