It is easy to write of "Show Management," and to give good advice, but the difficulty arises as to who is to undertake the actual work. Some will say, "Pay men or women to do it," but anyone who wants a show managed properly will find the greatest undertaking is to get the right person or persons; in fact, there is no truer proverb than, "If you want a thing done, do it yourself." Now, as it is impossible to do everything connected with show managing personally, one must employ very responsible people, in the first place, and someone must be always in attendance during every hour of the show - that is to say, in the day-time; and at night a trustworthy man should keep watch all the time, to see that nothing goes wrong.

Cat clubs should appoint a committee to supervise the work which is to be done. For instance, one should undertake the feeding, one the sanitary arrangements, another the covering of cages at night; also the crating and sending off should be carefully attended to.

For the last ten or twelve years I have attended large and small shows, both in England and in this country, so I can give some little advice as to what ought to be done for the comfort of cats during a show.

Firstly, I might mention that the diseases caught at shows by cats are not always due to bad show management, as most people seem to think.

Have you ever sat at the entrance to a hall and watched the cats arrive, some by express and some by hand, and seen the various ways these poor cats are packed and shipped, some in open crates, some in unlined baskets, others with just a box with a wire-netting front! Do the senders, and owners realize that this is no way to send a cat travelling, and that if they do so they just send disease, and with it infection, into every show? When you remonstrate with people, they tell you their cat is used to the cold. This may be the case, but no matter what temperature your cat lives in, or how much it runs in and out of the cold, it should not be placed in an open or draughty box or basket, as it is then obliged to sit still and cannot keep up its circulation, and therefore a violent cold or distemper is contracted; and, by the first or second day of the show, the cat is in the worst stages of infection, and endangers the lives of all the other animals which have been packed by humane owners or brought personally in a careful manner.

White Aigrette.

Champion Johnnie Fawe II.

It seems to me that clubs and promoters of cat shows would help themselves and lessen the danger of showing if they printed an "Important Notice" in their schedules to the effect that if cats are brought or shipped in unlined baskets or draughty boxes, they will not be admitted to the show.

It is quite time some very stringent measures were taken to prevent thoughtless and unfeeling owners from killing their own cats, and a great many others at the same time. I know of one person who ships his cats in large cases with wire fronts, like rabbit-hutches, with no covering of any kind over the fronts, so that they can be teased and frightened all the time they are travelling. They may be only short-haired cats, but these bring illness to shows quite as much as the long-haired.

This dissertation about show boxes may seem to some people unnecessary in an article on show management, but if fanciers cannot take care of their own cats when they ship them, it seems hardly reasonable to expect their cats to return home well; and if they return ill, they are the first to blame the show management, never for one moment blaming themselves for the careless way in which the cat was packed, and never thinking that they may have sent disease into the show, as well as bringing it back.

The first step in managing a show is to procure an attractive schedule or premium list, and get the offer of cups and medals from different clubs, associations and specialty clubs; also the offer of special prizes from private individuals, either money, silver or cups.

The show should be under the rules of some prominent cat association, so that proper championship points may be given; also a full classification should be provided, thus drawing a much larger entry.

Many poultry associations give a cat show in this way, in connection with their own annual event, providing a separate room or hall for the cat exhibits. This adds a great attraction to their show, and increases the gate-money considerably. After the premium list has been duly printed, it should be sent to all the prominent cat exhibitors in or around the vicinity. The names and addresses of cat fanciers can be procured from catalogues of previous shows, or from the different cat clubs. It is usually necessary to send out at least five hundred premium lists, and to obtain short-haired cats, a few advertisements in local papers will be found helpful. It is well to fix the date for entries to close about ten days before the show date, so as to get all entered up in time for the catalogue proof to go to print. All entry blanks should be kept to verify any mistakes exhibitors may have made in entering their cats.

The simplest way to enter up the entries is to procure a ledger with numbered pages and lettered address pages. Use the page numbers to correspond with the class numbers. For instance, "Class I - White Long-haired Male, Blue Eyes." Enter this on page one in your book, and so on through all the classes; then, when all the entries have been received, the contents of the book can be copied out for the printers, with, of course, the list of exhibitors and their addresses.

If the club does not own its own pens, they can be hired; about a dozen extra ones should be ordered, to use for judging, etc.

These pens, for a two or three days' show, should not be smaller than forty-two by twenty-one inches each.