The Bulldog. 207 



standard laid down for this breed has not materially 

 altered during the last twenty years, though judges' 

 decisions may have sometimes been at variance 

 with, if not diametrically opposed to, the standard 

 type. The very fact of there being now two bull- 

 dog clubs is a guarantee that no radical change in 

 the standard will ever be permitted, as one or other 

 of the clubs is certain to hover round so safe an 

 anchorage as an established type. If either club 

 sanctions what sensible men must know is a 

 departure from what is correct, it is only reasonable 

 to suppose that in the fulness of time that club will 

 sink in public estimation. 



The miasma of the breed is that the bulldog in 

 popular opinion has for so long been regarded as 

 the butcher's able assistant and the ruffian's faithful 

 companion ; but, owing to the interest its peculiar 

 conformation affords to the science of breeding, it 

 yearly gains more ground in civilised society by 

 attracting the attention of men of better education. 



However, before going right into the description 

 of what a modern bulldog ought to be, some few 

 particulars of his early history may be desirable, and 

 it is said that the first record of bulldogs in England 

 was in 1631, when one Prestwich Eaton, from St. 

 Sebastian, wrote to George Wellingham, of St. 

 Swithin's Lane, London, for a mastiff and two good 



