other
words, the less desirable dogs of thoroughbred litters.

Hampton's town hall auditorium was filled to overcrowding, with a mass
of visitors who paraded interestedly along the aisles between the
raised rows of stall-like benches where the dogs were tied; or who
grouped densely around all four sides of the roped judging-ring in the
center of the hall.

For a dogshow has a wel-nigh universal appeal to humanity at large;
even as the love for dogs is one of the primal and firm-rooted human
emotions. Not only the actual exhibitor and their countless friends
flock to such shows; but the public at large is drawn thither as to no
other function of the kind.

Horse-racing, it is true, brings out a crowd many times larger than
does a dogshow. But only because of the thrill of winning or losing
money. For where one's spare cash is, there is his heart and his
all-absorbing interest. Yet it is a matter of record that grass is
growing high, on the race-tracks, in such states as have been able to
enforce the anti-betting laws. The "sport of kings" flourishes only
where wagers may accompany it. Remove the betting element, and you turn
your racetrack into a huge and untrodden lot.

There is practically no betting connected with any dogshow. People go
there to see the dogs and to watch their judging, and for nothing else.
As a rule, the show is not even a social event. Nevertheless, the
average dogshow is thronged with spectators. (Try to cross Madison
Square Garden, on Washington's Birthday afternoon, while the
Westminster Kennel Club's Show is in progress. If you can work your way
through the press of visitors in less than half an hour, then Nature
intended you for a football champion.)

The fortunate absence of a betting-interest alone keeps such affairs
from becoming among the foremost sporting features of the world. Many
of the dogs on view are fools, of course. Because many of them have
been bred solely with a view to show-points. And their owners and
handlers have done nothing to awaken in their exhibits the half-human
brain and heart that is a dog's heritage. All has been sacrificed to
"points"--to points which are arbitrary and which change as freakily as
do fashions in dress.

For example, a few years ago, a financial giant collected and exhibited
one of the finest bunches of collies on earth. He had a competent
manager and an army of kennel-men to handle them. He took inordinate
pride in these priceless collies o