THE DANDIE DINMONT TERRIER. 207 



first instituted at Manchester, the example being followed at the London and 

 Birmingham shows of 1862, and since then none of the large shows have been 

 without a prize for the breed. At that held at Cremorne in 1863, the first true 

 Dandie shown (as far as I know) was from the kennel of the well-known breeder, 

 Mr. Aitken, of Edinburgh ; but he was but a moderate specimen, and received a 

 third prize only, the first and second being withheld for want of merit. A similar 

 result occurred at the Agricultural Hall exhibition held in the same year; but at 

 Birmingham the judges were more lenient, and rewarded Mr. Van Wart, of that 

 town, with a first and second prize for two specimens, both very moderate. In 1864 

 Mr. Hinks, of Birmingham, produced his " Dandie " at Cremorne, and took the first 

 prize, Mr. Van Wart getting a second. Being the best I had then seen, and being 

 again successful at Birmingham in that year, I took this dog to serve as an 

 illustration of the breed, remarking, however, that his coat was too silky for per- 

 fection. In 1867 began the paper war on the Dandie, which has, with few intervals, 

 been carried on up to the present day. Its origin must be attributed to the refusal 

 of the judges (Messrs. Collins and Smith) at Birmingham to award any prize for 

 want of merit ; one of them describing what he considered the typical dog as having 

 prick ears, among other points altogether foreign to the real breed as now admitted. 

 In the class thus stigmatised was the Rev. J. W. Mellor's Bandy, who, though he 

 would now stand no chance in an average class, had been placed first in 1866 by 

 Messrs. Perceval and Hedley, and, except in coat, was fairly typical of the breed, 

 though nothing whatever was known of his pedigree. This dog afterwards main- 

 tained a successful career on the show bench for some years, being opposed at 

 Birmingham in 1868, and at the Islington Dairy Farm exhibition in 1869, by the 

 Rev. Tennison Mosse's Shamrock, who only gained a second prize at the former, and 

 a third at the latter. Shamrock has been kept w.ell before the" public ever since ; but 

 his small head and weak jaws have told against him with most judges, those defective 

 points in his formation being considered, with justice, as inimical to a very high 

 position; and at the recent Dandie show at Carlisle, though he gained premier 

 honours, he was only credited with 78 points out of a possible 100, and with the 

 advantage accruing to him of the disuse of negative points, which, if employed, would 

 have reduced him still more. He is no doubt a very neat little dog .and of the true 

 type, but, lacking the above essentials, he can never be regarded as quite first class. 

 Of late years, Melrose, bred by Mr. Broadwith, of St. Boswell's, N.B., has been the 

 most successful up to 1873, but Mr. Locke's Sporran with his son Doctor have since 

 that year been established as the favourites of the various experts employed to judge 

 this breed, and as I think, deservedly, until the last Brighton show, where naturally 

 enough the immediate descendants of Shamrock had the best of it under the fiat of 

 his owner. 



Since my first acquaintance with the Dandie, pictorially and in the flesh, going 

 back nearly half a century, a considerable elongation has taken place in the body as 

 well as the ears of that dog. In the well-known portrait of Sir W. Scott, by 

 Landseer, a mustard-coloured Dandie is introduced, which is said to have been 

 painted from a dog then at Abbotsford, and which, as far as my memory serves me, 



