CHAPTER XVI. 



THE GREAT BREEDERS OF THE MODERN 

 MASTIFF. 



Know thou, () stranger to the fame 

 Of this much lov'd, much honour'd name ? 

 For none that knew him need be told 

 A warmer heart death ne'er made cold. 



It. Ittiniif. 



O 



JAMKS WIGGLESWORTH THOMPSON of St. Ann's, Southowram, 

 Yorkshire, commenced breeding mastiffs between 1830 and 

 1832, as near as can now be ascertained. According to his 

 own statement lie \vas born in 1818, but those who knew him 

 intimately state it was several years previous; he died April 

 i5th, 1875. ^ e na( l a weakness to try to conceal his age, but 

 was constantly unintentionally revealing in conversation 

 cognizance of events which showed that he was older than he 

 wished people to think. This reservation on his part as to 

 his exact age, was the cause of rather shrouding the dates of 

 his earlier operations in mastiff breeding in obscurity. 



However he left it on record that "he was quite a lad," 

 only about 14 years of age, and then living with his widowed 

 mother, when he first started keeping mastiffs, procuring 

 "Juno " from seeing an advertisement of !>ill Georges, and 

 it is certain that this Juno was the first mastiff he ever owned. 

 He wrote May igth, 1873, that "Juno was bought from Bill 

 George by my brother ; she was one of the finest bitches I 

 ever saw, long bodied and very massive, with a very long tail, 

 was brindle in colour, and rather rugged in coat." Her 



