Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, January 2, 1910, Page 17

PART THREE HALF-TONE PAGES 1 TO 4. A — FOR ALL THE NEWS THE OMAHA BEE BEST IN TME WES1 VOL. XXXIX-—NoO. 29, HMAHA,—SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 2 1910. “WHEN THE CHICKENS AND DOGS GO ON DRESS PARADE High Bred Fowls and Aristocratic Dogs Afford Amusement and Instruction for Thousands During the Week at Transmississippi Association’s Annual Show at the Omaha Auditorium Irang & Finn and his Meeyy Widow Jo WO thousand fowls, noisy belligerent, insistent, gathered into a cackling, crooning, crowing concourse—that was the Transmississippi Poultry show neld at the Auditorium last week. In the mind of the city dwelling consumer this vast gathering of show birds was more than likely to appeal from a utilitarian standpoint rather than from the enthusiastic but technical ide of the fancier. Think of it, if you gan, with the present prices fresh in mind after the holiday expenditures. Two thousand fowls, meaning in all nearly eight tons of poultry, worth at the prevailing prices something like $5,000. Then, while fancy ranges consider the possibilities if each fowl would tondescend to lay an egg a day at 0 cents a dozen for eggs. Seventy dollars’ worth of eggs would be he daily output. But the show birds were just vain objects of ad- miration and really too proud themselves to be considered from so material a viewpoint. There was que prevailing note in the poultry show room. The unmistakable mumur of the bellicose spirit of the birds arose from the long rows of coops. The Auditorium resounded with the one vibration, the war cry of the feathered clans. It was the enforced peace of stout cages alone that prevented the shedding of many feath- #ers and much blood. Fair tradition to the contrary notwithstanding, and despite the dove as the emblem of peace, the bird is a natural bern fusser, a scold, a combatant. Just to give vent to the tenseness that surcharged the atmosphere of the show, a few of the sturdy game cocks were allowed to mix it with gloves on for little harmless three and four-round goes. Yes, sir. Cock-fighting in sedate old Omaha of 1909, It was a long way from the kind of sport that the olden days have seen, though. The Transmississippi “mains’t were lively contests, but as bloodless as a reading circlé debate. The honors of the arena went to a strutting little bantam cock, of course. This little red pyle game ®ouldn’t stand long in a finish fight, but for points he was clearing the “classiest what 1s,” as Muggsy would put it. There were many fighting birds at the show. The tall, spare- built, rangy fellows, those were the games. Some of the game birds at the Transmississippl show have a pedigree that runs half way back to the revolution, a regular family tree, with everything but a coat- of-arms, Just a Part of Breeding In these days of reform the game Has become little more than a show chicken. Breeders find the game useful, however, in injecting a strain of stamina in the production of more valuable and remunera- tive birds. Then, it is just natural that the game should be healthy, because there has been no effort to take the fight out of the game chicken and he has developed unbridled. With all due respect to the game cock, he may be said to be a Jort of frontier fowl. His services as an eatertainer have been dis- penbed with as civilization has gained maturity. The cock fight, by the way, so the historians would have us believe, is but a survival of the old Roman days when combats of the beasts made the Coliseum A ‘ bloody. At the poultry show & most interesting collection of Plymouth Rocks was to be seen. The Plymouth Rock is the most entirely Amepican member of the chicken family. Just to size him up, a bagged Plymouth Rock cock gives a sort of sturdy stars and stripes el t. The antecedents of this very American bird are somewhat \ JIK6: the nation’s peoples, rather uncertain and highly complex. Ex- perts™have many theories, but the fact remains that no one can tell Just what the Plymouth Rock isimade of. This bird is the pride of P the farmer and the despair of the breeder. He is a hard-working, persistent chicken of good, sober habits and a home-loving disposi- tion. He has, however, a careless way of reverting back to ancestral traits of color and form in a most unexpected way. 1t must be just a whimsicality, but the Plymouth Rock cock in- sists on feathering lighter than his sister, and that sister persists in getting darker generation by generation. The breeders are busy all the time keeping the Rock family at a happy average for the show pens. Then there is a hidden streak of yellow in the Plymouth Rock, not his disposition, but just his colors. Down there in the Auditorium show one could see this yellow streak cropping out in a few of the birds. The fanciers giow grey hairs trying to keep down that brassy tint, for in prize-winning Plymouth Rocks there must not even be a suggestion of the yellow. 'This is quite right, too. Who wants a real American chicken to show the yellow? To the close observer the cages of the big show exhibits told many Interesting chapters in the history of the chicken family. The chicken is an old institution. He originated, according to the most reliable information obtainable, somewhere near where the human race is supposed to take its beginning over there among the mysteries of Asia. y Evolution of the Chicken The first chicken was a jungle fowl. Long association with man and frequent removal to distant climes has wWrought many changes in the bird and in the fat, sleek beautles of the show there is little that suggests the pheasant-likeé jungle fowl, the unchanged descend- ant of the same parent stem. As mignt be expecred, the Chinese put this jungle fowl to work long Lefore the western civilization got acquainted with it. This may account for the oriental origin of chop suey, of which chicken is alleged to be an Importamt component. This hazy Asiatic origin must, of course, also account for the inherent scrappiness of the chicken. Down there in the Malay provinces, where the chicken first grew into glory and prime, they fight for pastime. The heathen Chinee has bullded up from the parent stock, possi- Iy by accident, possibly by design long ago conceived, some of the ost valuable breeds of fowls. The beefy Brahmas and lumbering Langshans are Asiatic chick: Then there is the big black Shang- hal bird. His dutlines are those that suggest the sturdy Mongolian coolle bulld. Just to be outlandish, these Asiatic birds are given to the frivolity of growing feather leggings, making them look clownish and ungraceful. { The real sports of the chicken show were plenty. Taken all in » all, of course, the bantam, naturally impressed with its own impor- tance, was the’ Beau Brummel of the exhibition. There is more strut, crow and vanity in a bantam than any other chicken born in captivity. The bantam tribe of the Transmississippi chicken show has some claim to real blood, anyway, for the premier bird, of the 1908 show was “Omaha,” a red pyle game bantam. “Omaha” is a real sportive gent in chickendom. The bantam's aggressive nature is said to be in inverse geometrical ratio to his size. Like wrens, chickadees and other puny but pugnacious petits of the bird family, the bantam is much to be heard from in the councils of the barnyard. Along Top-Knot Row A Council Bluffs fancier showea somé high-bred ornamental fowls more distinguished for their eccentricities of garb than utility. Sev- eral coops of crested Houdans and white-crested Polish fowls consti- tuted ‘““top-knot row.” The crested Polish birds appeared in public wearing striking collections of home-made millinery in pure white and silver grey surmounting bodices and vests of the jettiest black. The effect was altogether charming and chic, as the soc’ety editor would remark. Then there were silkles—chubby, sweet disposi- tioned birds that do nothing of consequence but grow long, fine coats of glossy hair-like feathers. “Angora hens” was the designation that a conscienceless visitor placed upon the silkies. The silkies’ feathers, by the way, are deli- cate as satin floss and about as easily rumpled and tangled. The birds spend most of the day at their toilet. They don’t have to work for a living, though, on account of their good looks. In the Mediterranian group one big, black Minorca cock was the king. His claims to especial prominence were the biggest comb and’ wattles that ever grew on a chieken, and two iridescent sickle feath- ers in his tail, which gleamed like black pearl. Besides a high- sounding name and a proud Spanish ancestry, this cock had a crow- ing voice that was the envy of the whole rooster congress. The Leghorns, brown, white and black, gave the show a good representation of the most typical of the chickens where originated about the Mediterranian coast. The Leghorn is very properly a proud fowl. Besides being very shapely and cheerful, the Leghorn is much given to the production of eggs, a quality which cannot be over- looked. The Omaha show was more than usually strong in the show- ing of Leghorns. ) The Plymouth Rocks are finding a close rival in the contest for supremacy as the American chicken in the Columbian Wyandotte, the latest edition of the Wyandotte family. The Columbian fowl has assumed the colors of the Bruhma, minus the leggings, with the blocky but pleasing lines of the typical Wyandotte. Chickens in the making was the subject of a most attractive play by an incubator concern at the show. In a gla bator one could see the fuzzy hasn’t-scratched-yet chicks come peep- ing out of their shells into a motherless world. The incubator chicks found their way into another machine substituta for the mother hen, the brooder. Given a good, enthusiastic hen to lay eggs, dis- covered incu- modern poultry science can produce chickens by elec- teicity with greater certainty than unassisted nature can. One great bronze turkey cock graced the Transmississippl show. He gobbled and fluffed and strutted with an amusing air of grandeur quite befitting the roya: American bird. He was probably the only turkey who got through the holidays alive, This handsome bird was raised over at Dunbar, Ta., by Mrs. J. J. Nellig. A college scientist has just made the starc- ling announcement that the American turkey, the only turkey the world has ever seen, is doomed to extinction. It has come just this way. The turkey has had too much civilization and he is falling prey, the professor says, to that patri- cian disease of appendicitis. We might have ex- pected, however, that the turkey would follow the noble redskin, his one human contemporary in the primitive wilds. over the border into the past. It will be generally admitted that the too close touch with clvilization of the city has been hard on the turkey. There is not a case on record of a turkey going to a banquet and surviving the indulgence. This, however, cannot be at- tributed to the Iowa professor's diagnosis of appendicitis. The Transmississippi show barred the guinea. It may be that the guinea is a vociferous bird, but still he ought to have been wel- comed instead of barred out on that score. A few professional noise-making guineas might have put the less able fowls to shame and secured a few minutes of ultimate quiet during the show. There was a small showing of waterfowl. Despite the smallness of the pond-paddling delegation, they were much to be heard from in the general discussions of the feathered congress. The white China geese took the palm by a continuous concert in their native tongue. The China govse makes a bigger hit on the table than in the display pen. Much Chicken Chatter The show gave the breeders of this werritory a great opportunity for talkfests. There were busy groups of animated arguers all about the show. The chicken “fever” ran high. There is no limit to the possibilities in poultry breeding and plenty of room for argument in the questions involved. The Omaha show aims at the one greatest object of the buginess, the production of eggs and flesh fowls. The “show’’ side of the exhibition was subordinated to the material in- terests of industry. The work of preparation of the chickens for the show is an art of which the public knows little. Show chickens are always given a most elaborate toilette and special dress for the occasion. Careful baths are administered to put the feathers in their finest conditions. Leg scales and wattles must be oiled to bring out their colors in the brightest tints and claws and bills must be polished and scraped. Traits of the New President of the Union Pacific UDGE LOVETT, Harriman's trusted lieutenant, who was recently elected president of the Union Pacific railway, is the subject of the following interesting sketch by Garet Garrett in the December American Magazine “Lovett is Harriman's conscienc said one of the Union Pacific’s bankers, impa- tiently, and Judge Robert Scott Lovett re- sented it, the more so because there 'was truth in it. A man with a big nose, wide mouth and fine head, who has worked with his hands and come out of the west, is apt to be loyal. The legal representative of the Harriman roads was intensely loyal to Harri- man., He had brought the great spirit & the west to No, 120 Broadway, and had obliged all men, even Mr. Harriman, to respect it, To his office on the fourth floor of the Equi- table Life building Mr. Harriman was accus- tomed to summon men peremptorily. When he needed Lovett he went upstairs to Lov- ett's office on the Afth floor and sat down mith him. No other man about Mr. Harri- man was able to maintain his independence in the same degree. In the last two or three years of a tempestuous lite Harriman leaned heavily upon Lovett; at the very end the only man whom Harriman perfectly trusted was Lovett was the most street about Mr. being that the ract nently recorded. He old-fashioned way Georgla siave owner one ought to have, tie-hauling and little time for school Houston High school; cation. to the bar at Houston the And Lovett, of all men who knew, only one who-did not ii Harriman's uediciy street thinks Lovett homest, and thie is so much for Wall street {o think of any human deserves to be promi- He may owe Scotch stock ot which he is, but more likely he owes it to himself. who moved after the war in traditional circumstances that is, with fewer of the world's goods than What with farming 2nd holding a job struction crew, young Lovett must have had As railroad station agent he found time to read law, and in 1882 was admitted is now 49, which leaves him a young man. At 40 he was perhaps the best known rail- road attorney in the southwest, having en- Jjoyed the confidence and fees of both Jay Gould, who had large railroad interests in Texas, and Collls P. Huntington, who owned Southern Paclfte. bought cozz:ol of the Southern Pacific he found, among its other assets, Robert 8. Loy~ ett, attcrney and counsel in Texas. Mr. Har- riman’s genius cousisted partly in knowing men, and in a very short time he knew Lovy- ett go well that he brought him to New York to act as general counsel for all the Harri- Baptist, to wail Wail is honest, in a most it to the man lines. and honest, he was regarded at first wih conelderable curiosity in Wall street; pres- ently it was said of him that when the rough corners disappeared with eastern wear he would do. He isn’t much smoother today, but that has ceased to matter at all to any- body. As the intimate legal adviser of Ha riman Lovett was drawn Into the fiercest ed- dies of the financial maelstrom and never once, so far as anybody knows, grew dizzy His cool, good judgment pulled Harriman safely through many tight places and was in- valuable in the trying times of 1906 and 1907, when the head of the Union Pacific was the object of intense public interest. Harriman was to most people an lovable man, a great speculator and a marvellous money-maker. Lovett s to everybody a lovable man, with no more gen- fus for speculation than had Lincoln, whom he sometimes resembles.” . mugwump, awkward His father was a to Texas with a con- He got as far as the the rest was self-edu- He was then 22'and un- When Harriman It is true, too, that the vain show birds are given to the use of paint. The practice of staining birds to improve their marking is not allowed in the annual Transmississippi shows, but experts can accom- plish makeups that defy detection. Butter coloring or analine is used to give the slacles of the legs and bills fuller coloring. Inks of varlous colors can be deftly applied with a brush to make up nature's deficiencies in markings. Even false feathers can be attached to the show bird. Should a long, sweeping sickle feather of the proud cock’s tall be damaged it is but the work of a minute to replace it. The old feather is cut off at the base, leaving the hollow quill at- tached to the matrix In which the substitute is placed. A drop of glue on the splice makes it secure and the rooster’s tail waves once more, Poultry alone did not clalm the entire attention of he visitors to the Transmississippi show. The Nebraska Kennel club held in con- nection with the fowl show the annual exhibits of Fidoes, Neros and Towsers. It was a right merry collection of pups, with a wide rep- resentation of the dog family. . The aristocrat of the show was “Rodney,” an English bulldog, so homely that he looks like a cartoon of a bulldog. This valuable dog is the property of Emil Brandeis of Omaha. This squat-built canine has legs like an antique dressing table, a jaw undershot like a shovel and, withal, a sweet disposition, Pat Liked the Limelight i Little Pat, the mascot of the Merry Widow company, a Boston ’ bull from Boston, Mass., spent most of his time at the show sitting on a pedestal, with many admirers about him. Pat wears & real Back Bay air of reserve, but condescends to make a friend now and then. He, of course, enjoys the limelight. He was one of the few seasoned show dogs of the Kennel club's exhibit. Most of the dogs there were new at the game as compared with the entries in the east- ern shows. The real old-timer among show dogs gets Into the game and shows himself off with an air of consciousness. Pat had plenty of competition among the terriers, however. There are many well-bred Boston terriers in Omaha. They are quite the proper pet now: The fighting character of the show was Jack ‘Wonder, a pure-bred English bull. Jack weighs fifty-one pounds and don’t care who he meets. His running mate about the dog show ecircuit is Toddy Bob, a pit bull some twenty pounds heavier, Toddy Bob is the silent partner, however—Jack has taken all the noise out of him by show- ing the power of pit sclence over mere force. Jack's average is 1,000 per cent, having whipped Toddy Bob three times out of three times up. A woolfish little vixen of Polar ancestry is “Tootsie,” a Spitz be- longing to C. W. Irwin of Omaha. Tootsle and her family were at the show in force. The mother dog considered herself the whole show. She is fashionably attired in the season’s furs, pure white, A rare bit of vanity displayed was in her finely pencilled eyebrows, perfect semiT-circles of pale yellow. She lorded it over the Ayrdale terriers, the ugliest and wisest of the dog family. The average Ayr- dale terrier is so homely he is ashamed to speak to other dogs, or maybe he Is too wise and too proud. PN The Dalamstians, commonly known as coach dogs, attracted much admiration at the show. The Dalamatian is of no particular use except to run around behind his master's four-in-hand or tandem trap. The Dalamatian has a spotted hide and a wistful wandering eye that betokens a wool-gathering mind Another show dog of unusual design was a tiny Itallan grey- hound, a miniature of his big brother. The Italian greyhound s built on slight lines and wears big gazelle-like eyes that look hungry. Carl Lambicht of Omaha had a sedate old St. Bernard about the size of a Shetland pony on display “Nero” looks the part of an Alpine hero and resembles the picture in McGuffey's ¥ifth reader. Nero 1s sald to be very fond of children, but he is fed exclusively on dog biscult,