52 THE DOGS OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 



Prior to the show the club had drawn up and published a code of points 

 describing each minutely, and allotting to them the following numerical value : 



POINTS OF THE Fox TERRIEE. 



Yalue. 



Head and ears 15 



Neck 5 



Shoulders aiid chest. . . 15 



35 



Yalue. 



Back and loin 10 



Hindquarters 5 



Stern .. 5 



20 

 Grand Total 100. 



Value. 



Legs and feet 20 



Coat 10 



Symmetry and cha- 

 racter 15 



45 



" Now, by almost general consent, the above-named gentlemen is admitted to 

 have an excellent knowledge of the fox terrier, and, on the whole, his decisions were 

 accepted ; but the curious feature attending them is that, with a class of dogs so 

 near together as to take him almost two hours to select the prize winner, no attempt 

 was made to reduce the theory of points into practice with the aid of pencil and 

 paper. At the end of an hour and twenty minutes Mr. Bassett had drawn six from 

 the sixty-seven dogs of which the class was composed, five of them being compact 

 and strong-bodied animals, with slight variations in other points, but all very near 

 together, while the sixth is a dog with a beautiful head, but possessing a body of 

 almost greyhound-like proportion. Now, surely with such opposite types, and 

 with a code of points at his disposal, drawn up by a club who had appointed him, 

 any reasonable man would aid his memory by jotting down in pencil the numerical 

 value of the points in each of the competitors according to the above code. Of 

 what use is such a code, if not thus applied? we ask of all men possessed of 

 common sense. How otherwise can the beautiful head of the winner (Brockenhurst 

 Joe), coupled with his light body, be compared with the inferior head, but wonder- 

 fully good body and legs, of the second dog (Moslem) ? That it was a near thing 

 between them, as admitted by all, only makes this numerical comparison the more 

 needful; and, though we do not by any means impugn the decision, we think it 

 highly probable that if Mr. Bassett had taken out his pencil he would have come 

 to a different conclusion: at all events, he would have given his estimate of the 

 points exhibited by the six dogs formerly selected by him, which would have been 

 of great interest to breeders of the fox terrier, in which every point in detail is 

 now weighed and considered with great care by thousands of both sexes throughout 

 the land. But, much as we think the paper and pencil were wanted in this class, 

 they were still more needed by him in his judging of the rough bitch class. In this 

 small lot of six, Bramble, bred by Mr. Wootton, exhibited as beautiful a head as 

 that of Brockenhurst Joe, coupled with a light body, but not nearly so light 

 as that of Mr. Gibson's dog though looking more so than usual from the effects 

 of a recent sea voyage and in addition very good legs and feet. Minx, who was 

 placed first by Mr. Bassett, was also bred by Mr. Wootton, but was by no means 

 equal to Moslem in body; and between her and Bramble, if judged numerically 

 according to the above standard, the decision would, as we think, have been 



