346 
a short time he becomes the more popular 
dog of the two. 
The inherent merit possessed by the wire- 
hair has gradually but surely brought him 
forward until he is now a very serious rival 
to the smooth. A suggestion that such a 
thing were possible, some few years back, 
would have been laughed to scorn, but as 
testimony to it one cannot do better than 
MR. WALTER §. GLYNN’S CH. LAST O’' REMUS 
BY ROYSTON REMUS——BRYNHIR BLOSSOM. 
read the words used by a_ well-known 
judge of both varieties, in a report of his 
published in The Kennel Gazette, of 
February, 1907, in which he makes some 
pertinent remarks on this subject, and 
prognosticates that from what he has 
recently seen when judging at different 
shows, it is not at all improbable that very 
shortly the wire-hair will altogether eclipse 
in point of merit and numbers his smooth 
relative. When one considers that these 
remarks emanate from one of the very 
oldest and most successful breeders of the 
smooth in existence, and that he (Mr. 
Robert Vicary) never, as far as the writer’s 
memory serves him, owned a wire-hair in 
his life, the value of such testimony must 
readily be admitted. 
The career of the wire-hair has up to the 
last few years been a very hard one, the 
obstacles in his way have been stupendous. 
One such has already been dealt with— 
the fact that his smooth brother has been 
much more popularly owned. Others may 
be described as :— 
THE NEW BOOK 
OF THE Dec. 
2, Injudicious breeding operations. 
3. Scant courtesy received at the hands 
of many of the owners of the smooth variety 
and others. 
4. Incompetency of gentlemen appointed 
to officiate as judges of the variety at several 
of the shows. 
3. Unenviable notoriety attained through 
his being most unfairly made the scapegoat 
of “ faking.” 
This list, although probably not com- 
prehensive, is a formidable one, and makes 
one wonder how it is that the subject of all 
this attention, or non-attention, has survived 
at all. The natural train of thought is that 
his having done so, and having approached 
the state of perfection in which he un- 
doubtedly exists at the present day, shows 
that there must be something in him after 
all, and that he ought to be admired more 
than he is, and his existence more than 
tolerated. 
Dealing shortly with these headings it 
will easily be understood that, owned only 
in a small way by people not over blessed 
with this world’s goods, the breeding of 
the wire-hair was not looked upon as of 
much importance. The old Jock of each 
village would invariably be used irrespective 
of whether or not he was a likely sire; his 
services could, however, be obtained for 
nothing or next to it, and there was no 
money ready for the stud fee of a fashionable 
dog. 
The North of England and South Wales 
(to a lesser extent) have ever been the home 
of the wire-hair, and nearly all the best 
specimens have come originally from one or 
the other of those districts. There is no 
doubt that there was excellent stock in 
both places, and there is also no doubt that 
though at times this was used to the best 
advantage, there was a good deal of careless- 
ness in mating, and a certain amount in 
recording the parentage of some of the 
terriers. With regard to this latter point 
it is said that one gentleman who had quite 
a large kennel and several stud dogs, but 
who kept no books, used never to bother 
about remembering which particular dog 
he had put to a certain bitch, but generally 
