So eager were they for the fray,
To be in time, for Sport,
They both arrived, upon the day,
The day, before, they ought!
Many of the older exhibitors will remember the late Mr. I. H. Murchison, F. R. G. S., whose large and successful kennel of St. Bernards, Dandies, and Fox Terriers, was for so many years in the front rank at all the leading shows? As I was much mixed up in the two last named varieties, I used constantly to be in his company, and that of his son, also a keen and capable fancier. I remember on one occasion meeting him at a show, I forget where it was, now, I think in the London district, but amongst the dogs he had there was a young and very promising Fox Terrier, called "Cracknel," with which he had carried all before him, and he showed me a letter he had received from a gentleman then, as now, in the front rank of Fox Terrier breeders, and exhibitors, offering him £270 for the dog, and he said, since receipt of the letter, the writer had offered to make it "even money" (£300), at that time, quite a fancy price for a specimen of that breed. He said, "What would you advise me to do about it?" I said, "Why take it, without hesitation, it is a tempting price, the life of all dogs is uncertain, and show dogs, especially, and it will do your kennel more good to have sold a dog from it, at such a figure, than anything you can gain, in any other way." However, he refused the offer, and Cracknel not long afterwards rushed into a hayfield after a rabbit, or rat, and so cut himself with a scythe hidden in the long grass that he had to be sewn up and was long in the veterinary surgeon's care and was never in the front rank again!
I have known many such cases of good offers being refused to the prejudice of the dog's owners. I remember a well-known lady exhibitor coming up to me at a show with a telegram she had just received from America, offering her £150 for a prize winning pug she had, and asking my advice. I strongly advised her to take it, as it was far more than the market value of the dog, but, in the end, she sent back a refusal. Other dogs came forward, and put her dog into the rear rank, and she afterwards sold it for, I think, about £20.
Mr. Edwin Nichols, of whom I have spoken in relation to several large breeds, was one of the first men to get large prices for his dogs, as it must be quite twenty years or more since he received so he told me, £900 for two dogs, one of them being the well known Mastiff, "Turk," one of the grandest specimens of his day, and the other a high class Bloodhound.
And to show what a fine judge he was as to the strains to breed, I remember an instance he gave me from his extensive experience. He met a friend one day to whom he had sold a Bloodhound bitch puppy, who said, "Mr. Nichols, I wish you would take back that puppy I had from you, it is always doing mischief in the garden, etc., and I wish to get rid of it." Mr. Nichols said, "I really don't want it, I have a lot of dogs of all ages, and I am more a seller than a buyer at present." To make a long story short, he eventually took back the young bitch for £10, afterward mating her to one of his best dogs, and he told me that he sold that litter, which produced two if not three champions, for over one thousand pounds. I say, that a man who could do such a thing, proved himself a consummate judge, and I have not the slightest doubt of the truth of the story, and, when he named the dogs in the litter to me, I knew what grand specimens of the breed they were.