348 The Dog Book 
by farmers in the Border counties, followed the development of railroad 
traffic; and, as much of the northern trade made Birmingham a centre for 
sale purposes, it early became the best-known district for dogs from the 
north country as far as the Highlands. London was a market for sheep 
for slaughter, Birmingham more of a farmers’ market, and dogs brought 
down by the shepherds found a sale among the shepherds and farmers of 
the midland counties. We can say that the collie was practically unknown 
in London as late as 1860. The sheep dogs seen there were mostly the 
tucked-up-loin smooths with no tails, as shown by Bewick, with an 
occasional wretched, mud-and-rain-soaked, bob-tailed sheep dog, and still 
more infrequently a rough collie, usually undersized and a sorry looking 
object. These all went under the name of drover’s dogs, being used for 
either sheep or cattle. 
The first volume of the English stud book fully bears out our own 
early knowledge of the conditions prevailing up to 1868. In this book 
there are seventy-eight “sheep dogs and Scotch collies” registered up to 
1874, and but two of these were owned as far south as London. The 
majority were the property of owners living in Lancashire, Warwickshire, 
Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Fifteen of them had pedigrees, only three 
extending beyond sire and dam. Mr. H. Lacy, one of the best known and 
most respected of the past generation of Manchester dog fanciers, and 
father of the equally well-known and respected Mr. H. W. Lacy, of Boston, 
was then the leading exhibitor of collies, and his Champion Mec was one 
of the most typical collies of his time. He was a black and tan, as were 
most of the dogs of that day. One of his rivals was the dog Cockie, a red- 
coated one; and Mr. Charles H. Wheeler, the “father of the Birmingham 
fancy,” is our authority for saying that Cockie was the dog from which we 
got the sable in the show dogs. 
Mr. Wheeler most kindly consented, when asked a year ago to con- 
tribute from his store of knowledge of the old-time dogs, and on being 
reminded more recently of his promise, replied that he was writing exactly 
what we had asked for the I/ustrated Kennel News, and the one contribution 
should do for both. To Mr. Wheeler we are also indebted for most of the 
photographs of olden-time collies, including that remarkable one of Cocksie, 
another dog from Cockie, which in the printed description of dog and 
owner is specifically stated to be a photograph of the dog himself. It has 
never been hitherto published, neither has that of Nesta, which we owned, 
