The Newfoundland. 263 



There is certainly a dignity of demeanour, a noble bearing, and a 

 sense of strength and power, though softened by the serenity of his 

 countenance and deeply sagacious look which cannot be disassociated 

 from great size, and no better illustration of this could be found than 

 Mr. Howard Mapplebeck's Leo, and these were among the good qualities 

 which have always commended him to public favour. The Newfoundland's 

 good qualities, however, do not rest here ; he is of a strongly emulative 

 disposition, extremely sensitive to praise or censure, and should therefore, 

 especially when young, be managed with great care and circumspection ; 

 he is never so well satisfied as when employed either for the pleasure or 

 advantage of his master, and his strong propensity to fetch and carry 

 develops itself naturally at an early age. One that I trained when a boy, 

 and that afterwards became famous in the Postmaster General's service 

 (although not on the pay list), by carrying the letter bags between a village 

 office and the Carlisle and Glasgow Mail Coach, when quite a puppy 

 would bring a small log from the woodhouse for the kitchen fire at the 

 word of command, and indeed often without, for I have seen him, for his 

 own amusement, bring quite a pile of them in, which he would take back 

 one by one when told. 



As a water dog he has no equal he delights in it, will almost live in 

 it and his high courage and great swimming powers enable him to face, 

 and do service in such a sea as I believe no other land animal can success- 

 fully encounter. 



Knowing and admiring the wonderful faculty he possesses, suggested 

 to me, when viewing the sea from the site of Portsmouth Dog Show in 

 1875, the advisability of instituting water trials as a means of keeping 

 up and developing this wonderful and useful natural power, that his 

 great abilities as a life-saver might be made the best of for the 

 benefit of man, for it cannot be denied that without such aids public or 

 private dog shows may do serious harm, giving, as they properly do, 

 prominence to the finest developed animal. But if prize winners, how- 

 ever grand in appearance, are uneducated, their instincts and natural 

 powers undeveloped and indeed checked, are continuously bred from, 

 we shall soon have lost sterling qualities and get, in return, mere good 

 looks. 



But the two things fine physical development, with high cultivation 

 of those instincts, and natural powers are not incompatible, and should, 



