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CHAPTER I. 

 THE MASTIFF. 



QUITE recently a somewhat interesting cor- 

 respondence has taken place in the Field regarding 

 what some contributors called the " deterioration 

 of the mastiff," implying by these words that the 

 old English mastiff of the present day was not 

 equal to what it had been, say, twenty-five years 

 or so ago. Whether this is the case or not it would 

 be difficult to determine from what was written by 

 those engaged in the controversy, for, as is always 

 the case with ordinary newspaper discussions, the 

 general reader was about as wise at its termination 

 as he was at the beginning. There is, however, 

 no doubt that the modern mastiff breeder, in 

 allowing a craze for huge heads and great skulls 

 to get the better of him, has, as a rule, pro- 

 duced these exaggerations to the sacrifice of 



It 



