The St. Bernard Dog 579 



date, as the artist died in 1845 and Prince Albert came to England in 1840. 

 The rough dog is certainly a weird specimen; but the smooth dog is quite pre- 

 sentable, considering the time they represent. It is certainly not so good as 

 Lauder's dog, but he, we think, went in for large dogs and probably was 

 more of a judge. Certain it is that some person near where he lived had 

 large dogs about 1850. His name is peculiarly familiar to us, as are 

 warnings, when we children went visiting friends at The Grange, Edin- 

 burgh, to be on the lookout for the dogs. 



Herr Schumaker in his contribution to Dalziel's monograph on the St. 

 Bernard tells us that when the monks crossed with Newfoundlands and 

 Great Danes, which he says was about 1830, they gave away or sold all the 

 rough-coated dogs as being useless in the snow, keeping only the smooth- 

 coated ones; and thus the breed, if it can be so called, was distributed 

 among Swiss fanciers who developed it. Herr Schumaker described these 

 dogs as red, with white markings, black face, black neck and double dew- 

 claws, "and of a height not since attained." That was written in 1886, and 

 with all due respect to the writer we think his imagination as to height is 

 supplanting the facts, for St. Bernards have grown steadily in height for 

 twenty-five years and there is nothing to prove that they ever became reduced 

 in size among the Swiss breeders. 



Thanks to those gifts from the Hospice to the Swiss breeders, the monks 

 were in 1862 once more enabled to replenish their kennels, Herr Schumaker 

 being a liberal donor. By far the largest number of the dogs imported into 

 England, and certainly the best importations, came from the Swiss breeders; 

 but the proper thing to say was, " it came from the Monastery of St. Bernard ;** 

 and a great many St. Bernards were so described which had no claim to that 

 questionable distinction, as they were merely descendants from dogs which 

 had been bred there years before. 



The first St. Bernards we have any recollection of were some that Al- 

 bert Smith used as an advertisement in connection with his lecture on Mont 

 Blanc, which was a standing dish at Egyptian Hall, London, for a very long 

 time. These dogs or some of them we saw frequently at the entrance to the 

 Hall, for Dalziel says he had "some well-bred dogs purchased at the Hos- 

 pice;" and of course they seemed exceedingly large to our youthful imagi- 

 nation, and doubtless were fair-sized dogs for that time. That must 

 have been between 1855 and i860. There seems to be no tracing 

 back to these dogs, however; so that except in the way of a record 



