540 The Dog Book 



where it was fostered in Germany, but in that direction we have been unable 

 to prosecute any research. In England the first information is found in 

 Sydenham Edwardes's work. Here he is described very much as Buffon has it. 

 The height, he says, is usually about 28 inches, but some run up to 31 inches. 

 He refers to the harlequins, and gives the same information regarding their 

 use as carriage dogs for the noble or wealthy, mentioning also the necessity 

 of keeping them muzzled to prevent them fighting. Richardson in 1848 

 writes of their being gigantic and from 30 to 32 inches in height. In all prob- 

 ability the disappearance of the Great Dane from England was the result 

 of this acknowledged aptitude for fighting, and in the first days of dog shows 

 he was only known of by hearsay as the boarhound, the name by which 

 Wynn always refers to him in his "History of the Mastiff" (1886). Mr. F. 

 Adcock, who went in for Spanish bulldogs and other European breeds, had 

 a brute of a dog, well named Satan, a perfect terror in temper, which he used 

 to show about 1880. This exhibitor did his best to have Stonehenge include 

 the breed in his "Dogs of the British Islands," but he did not like the dog 

 to begin with, and got out of accepting him by holding that he was not one 

 entitled to be included in a book with such a title. 



It was not until 1883 that the breed was given a class, and that as a 

 boarhound, this privilege being granted both at the Palace and at Bir- 

 mingham, Mr. Adcock having influence as a resident in the nearby town of 

 Leamington. The same year the Kennel Club admitted the breed to the 

 studbook, and in 1884 it appeared as the Great Dane. 



The breed "caught on" fast in England, for in the late fall of 1884 when 

 on^ a brief visit there we saw some splendid dogs, including that grand 

 specimen, Cedric the Saxon, and another almost his equal, the Earl of War- 

 wick. We recall how wonderfully we were impressed with the size, sym- 

 metry and quality of these dogs. All of the English winners of that time were 

 imported from Germany, where there seems to have been some trouble in 

 agreeing upon a name for the breed. Ulmer dog and Deutsche dogge as 

 well as German mastiff were names in more prominence than any others. 

 It seems to have been decided about 1874 to give them the name of Deutsche 

 doggey but according to a letter written to Vero Shaw and published in his 

 "Book of the Dog," Herr Gustav Lang, conveyed the information that 

 the breeders of the dog in Germany had agreed to abolish all the 

 names which had been in use and called the breed German mastiffs. 

 This seems never to have been taken up by the general public, and the case 



