(5 of 5)
In order to secure such honors, dog-fanciers, like the owners of racing stables, will sometimes descend to low and disgraceful practices. For example, Mrs. Florence B. Ilch, highly successful exhibitor of collies, aroused the professional jealousy of, it is surmised, an unscrupulous competitor. This competitor was aware that Mrs. Ilch was afflicted with a weak heart, that she had two sons who go to college. Accordingly, when she was on the point of leading her first entry into the ring, the competitor sent Mrs. Florence Ilch a telegram which read as follows: "Hurry to New Haven immediately, son, James, killed in automobile accident, (signed) Roommate." In a state of partial collapse, Mrs. Ilch was officially informed that both of her sons were in a fine condition of health. At this, Mrs. Ilch recovered and exhibited her dogs with some success.
After the show was over, there was an unpleasant aftermath of surreptitious doings which further emphasized the mercenary aspect of dog shows. Someone administered a dose of arsenic to Hi-Point Monoplane, prize collie puppy, owned by one William J. Burgess. So potent was the dose, that Hi-Point Monoplane died a day or so later, to the rage, sorrow, and financial loss of his owner. Someone else fixed a beady and covetous eye on Warily Gang Leader, champion wire-haired fox terrier, kennel mate and spouse to parexcellent Talavera Margaret. While the dog was being shown by her owner, this individual crept to the box wherein Warily Gang Leader was chained, before which a sentry should have been posted. Presumably, then, he put Warily Gang Leader warily under his coat, deposited him in a sack, then put the sack in a truck leaving a back entrance of Madison Square Garden, to avoid porters instructed to let no dog leave the building without properly identified escort. When Reginald M. Lewis, owner of Warily Gang Leader and Talavera Margaret, returned, the kennel was bare. His loss was approximately $2,500.
The obscure and mysterious enterprises in which dogs, all over the world, engage, seldom coincide with the equally enigmatic but less obscure adventures to which men direct their attention. Yet, at each end of the earth, a bone is buried. And for this bone, with equal ardour, under a sky that is like a shallow bell of cold and darkly irridescent glass, across terraced and interminable lawns of snow, men and dogs scramble together. Last week, Richard E. Byrd, famed aviator, spoke of his proposed South Polar expedition. Said he: "I shall take three airplanes and 100 dogs . . ."