524 The Dog Book 



That that position was not altogether wrong we quote from the Gazette 

 of December, 1894, the case being the cancelling of a registration of a 

 Boston terrier which had a bulldog as a sire. The breeder of this com- 

 bination was Mr. W. C. Hook, who was also the person who passed upon 

 and approved pedigrees of the breed for acceptance in the stud book. He 

 was asked to explain, and in his answer said : " It is a well-known fact that 

 on account of inbreeding certain very important points of the Boston terrier 

 have become almost obsolete, namely, the broad, flat skull, rose ears and 

 short tapering tail, all bulldog characteristics, and to my mind the only 

 way to again bring them into prominence is to infuse the original bulldog 

 blood into our stock, which is now too strongly terrier. ... At the next 

 Boston show we shall offset a premium for the best rose ears on a Boston 

 terrier, to encourage the breeding of the same. Very few indeed have any 

 approach to a rose ear, and as it is a bulldog characteristic I do not see 

 any other way to get it than to breed to the bulldog." As chairman of the 

 Stud Book Committee we thus commented upon Mr. Hook's letter, first 

 referring to the fact that the committee had not previously endorsed the 

 admission application: "The gentlemen representing the Boston Terrier 

 Club assisted their arguments most materially by producing photographs 

 of two or three generations of breeding, and other photographs to prove 

 the thorough establishment of type in the breed, and were most positive 

 in asserting that the Boston terrier could not be produced as a first cross. 

 Within a year we have Mr. Hook, so much of an authority on the breed as to 

 be chosen by his club to act as pedigree supervisor, informing us that 

 * certain very important points of the Boston terrier have become almost 

 obsolete by inbreeding.* In contradiction to that peculiarity breeders 

 will be more apt to claim or admit that only by inbreeding can points be 

 established, and that if this has already become necessary in the case of the 

 Boston terrier it is not an 'established breed' in the sense used by the 

 American Kennel Club." The result was that the Stud Book Committee 

 was put in charge of the matter and they arranged with the Boston Terrier 

 Club that only one cross should be permitted to a bulldog or terrier and that 

 only in the third generation. We can very well recall that at the meeting 

 at which this solution of the difficulty was accepted, February, 1895, we 

 unconditionally surrendered and stated that in no breed then being shown 

 at Madison Square Garden was there more uniformity of type or such an 

 advance in that direction within two years, and that the Boston terrier 



