Other
English ladies who exhibit largely are Mrs. Herring, of Lestock House,
and Miss Cockburn Dickinson, of Surrey. Mrs. Herring's Champion Jimmy
is very well known as a first prize-winner in many shows. He is a
short-haired, exquisitely marked silver tabby valued at two thousand
pounds ($10,000).
Another feline celebrity also well known to frequenters of English cat
shows, is Madame L. Portier's magnificent and colossal Blue Boy, whose
first appearance into this world was made on the day sacred to St.
Patrick, 1895. He has a fine pedigree, and was raised by Madame Portier
herself. Blue Boy commenced his career as a show cat, or rather kitten,
at three months old, when he was awarded a first prize, and when the
judge told his mistress that if he fulfilled his early promise he would
make a grand cat. This he has done, and is now one of the finest
specimens of his kind in England. He weighs over seventeen pounds, and
always has affixed to his cage on the show-bench this request, "Please
do not lift this cat by the neck; he is too heavy." He has long dark
blue fur, with a ruff of a lighter shade and brilliant topaz eyes.
Already Blue Boy has taken many prizes. He is a gelded cat and one of
the fortunate cats who have "Not for Sale" after their names in the show
catalogues.
To Mrs. C. Hill's beautiful long-haired Patrick Blue fell the honor, at
the Crystal Palace Show in 1896, of a signed and framed photograph of
the Prince of Wales, presented by his Royal Highness for the best
long-haired cat in the show, irrespective of sex or nationality.
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