442 BRITISH DOGS 



be bred with more respect to complement externe the taste and 

 fashion that dictated such a course also gave preference to, and 

 exalted above his fellows, the smooth-coated, straight-legged 

 and white-pied dog. Mr. Allison instinctively sees and seizes the 

 main point when, referring to the authorities he had quoted, he says, 

 in his contribution to the First Edition of " British Dogs " : " We 

 may see that Smooth and Wire-haired Fox-terriers existed con- 

 temporaneously in those days, and that the word Terrier is not 

 applied to any dog except those fitted for hunting and going to 

 ground." He then proceeds : 



"The modern Manchester Terrier and \Vhite English Terrier 

 could not possibly be classed in such a category ; while, as to the 

 black-and-tan colour of the last century and beginning of this, it was 

 quite different from that of the so-called Manchester Terrier : that is 

 to say, the tan was lighter and more abundant such things as 

 pencilled toes, thumb marks, etc., being altogether absent while 

 the shape and character of the dog were those of the modern Fox- 

 terrier, as may be evidenced by old pictures, and by the breed 

 which the Duke of Beaufort, Treadwell, and others preserved until 

 quite recently. Now, having premised that Wire-haired Terriers 

 have, or ought to have, as good antecedents as their smooth 

 brethren, it behoves us to look at them as they are, and we shall 

 find that, while the smooth sort have for many years excited the 

 greatest interest, the rough one has languished in comparative 

 obscurity. Nay, at some shows he has even been relegated to the 

 ranks of the ' Non-sporting Dogs ' ; while the Kennel Club actually 

 made a retrograde movement, at their show in 1879, by removing 

 the Wire-haired division from the arbitrament of the Fox-terrier 

 judges. 



All this is a base libel on the breed. A good Wire-haired 

 Terrier is one of the most sporting of all dogs ready for anything ; 

 and though the writer of this has given more attention to the 

 smooth kind, he would be the last to deny that, unless the smooth 

 dog is of good and pure strain, with plenty of coat, the rough one is 

 the better sportsman of the two. 



It is, no doubt, a fact that any breed of dogs that is vastly in 

 fashion runs a great danger : so many specimens become valuable 

 merely for their show qualifications that would otherwise have been 

 knocked on the head as rank curs or, at least, never have been 

 bred from. But, as it is, the unreasoning public breed indis- 

 criminately from prize winners ; and, besides that, certain sharp 

 customers are for ever at work manufacturing what they consider 

 better sorts than the real article. Is it said a Terrier's head should 

 be long ? they go for assistance to the Greyhound ; he should 

 have lots of bone ? they obtain it from the Beagle ; and so on. 



