The English Setter 127 
his purchase. We visited England in the early winter of 1884, and the only 
show of importance we had an opportunity of seeing was that at Hull. 
There we met our old friend Billy Graham, from Belfast, who, by the way, 
took the special for best four of any breed with the best matched team of 
Irish terriers we have ever seen benched by any person. Mr. Graham 
told us he had an order for a brace of setters for Mr. Windholz and wanted 
our opinion on a dog that was at the show. We had already had a casual 
glance along the benches and had noted a very likely looking dog and, 
remembering his whereabouts, we located the dog when Mr. Graham was 
trying to do so. It was the dog we had noticed. He was in very poor 
condition, thin as a rail and looking wretched. We took him down and in 
reply to the question as to whether he could be got right, Mr. Graham said 
he was positive he could, as he had seen him in good shape and his condition 
then was the result of sickness. “Then buy him if you are sure of that, for 
if he can be got right he will beat any setter we have,” was our advice. So 
Graham bought the dog and later secured an excellent mate for him in 
Princess Phoebus. Rockingham was one of those dogs fitly described by 
one of the critics of that day who, when not exactly sure of his ground, summed 
up a dog as having no glaring faults—slightly strong in head, but of good 
type and excellent expression and needing a little more bend to the hocks 
and a little less flatness of back. A few changes of that sort would have 
been very great improvements in a dog that even without them was an 
excellent type all over, and with his lovely coat was one that gave pleasure 
to look at. He was a good ‘dog to shoot over, and so were his get, Mr. 
Windholz always taking a fall shooting trip to the South in those days. 
Unfortunately, neither this good dog nor his sire Belthus, then in this 
country, were bred to to any extent, nor as men of intelligence in the breed 
should have done. Breeders went after strange gods in those days with 
results we shall soon have to touch upon. Mr. Windholz followed up these 
importations with those of Count Howard, Cora of Wetherall, Countess Zoe 
and Princess Beatrice, and could show a team the counterpart of which we 
never saw until Mr. Vandergrift took up the breed a few years ago. The 
rival to Mr. Windholz was the Blackstone Kennels of Pawtucket, and as 
Foreman could not defeat Rockingham, Mr. Crawford decided to import 
one that might do so. The result was the oncoming of Royal Albert, 
who finally succeeded in winning from the older dog at New York in 1887. 
The question was not by any means considered settled thereby, for the con- 
