CHAPTER IX. 

 THE BULLDOG. 



TIME is known to play grim jokes with historical 

 monuments, but it probably has never burlesqued 

 anything more than it has our national emblem, the 

 British bulldog. 



Evolved for a specific purpose a purpose long 

 since stamped out both by law and by sentiment 

 the present day examples can only be looked upon 

 as the result of breeding for certain points not 

 desired or found in any other kind of dog. That 

 the bulldog can claim as great pretensions to 

 antiquity as any other now so-called breeds is 

 not to be denied ; but to say that bulldogs are bred 

 to-day on the same lines as they were even sixty 

 years ago would be an assertion that could not by 

 any evidence be defended. 



Ancient writers have been quoted ad nauseam , 

 but, interesting as these extracts may be as 

 references to the early history of dogs in general, 

 they bear no coherent testimony that the animals 



