FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
483 
incidents that have come under my own observation may 
be looked upon as dogtails. My dogs are chained in a retired 
place during the day, and have the freedom of the barnyard 
during the night, which consists of about an acre of ground 
shut in by my henneries and a high picket fence. It so 
happened that one of the men of my place and a carpenter 
who was working for me went into the barnyard for some 
boards before the dogs were placed on their chains. Hot 
seeing the animals they opened the gate and took up some 
boards, when they were suddenly pinned by the dogs, and 
in their fright they let the boards fall, and the dogs loosened 
their hold, and the men walked quietly away, the dogs 
politely showing them outside the gate, and laid themselves 
across the entrance until it was closed. 
On another occasion one of the workmen in the place ran 
to the pump in the barnyard to get a pail, and as soon as he 
fairly got hold of it he was reminded by a severe jerk of the 
pants that it would be more for his interest to leave it alone, 
and he dropped the pail, and was politely shown the barn- 
door. They seem to say, “ Walk around as you please, but 
1 touch not, handle not.’ ” A neighbor complained to me of 
some one stealing his eggs and milking his cow, and seemed 
anxious to find out the individual. I agreed to aid him, as 
it had become a matter of grave importance to him. Upon 
his stipulating with me that he would bear all the conse- 
quences of the experiment, I put one of my dogs in the man- 
ger in his stable for the night. About four in the morning 
a terrible screaming and shouting was heard in the direction 
of the stable. My neighbor arose and went to the place, and 
found a man lying prostrate, with the dog hold of his throat. 
He was so alarmed that he came immediately over for me. 
I coaxed the dog to let loose his hold, which he did, but 
planted his right leg upon the man’s breast. I approached 
him gently and caressed him, and, raising the man up, asked 
him if he was hurt, seeing no blood, and he replied he was 
in the leg. I asked him how it was that he was bitten in 
that part of the body when the dog did not touch his throat. 
He said he attempted to escape, and hit the dog with a crow- 
bar, when he seized him by the leg, and bit him severely 
till he threw him, and then he jumped for his throat, and 
held him by the shirt and cravat. The individual turned 
out to be my neighbor’s gardener, who resided a short dis- 
tance from the house, and lived upon his master’s eggs and 
milk. He said the more he resisted the animal the more 
ferocious he became, and he concluded when the dog had the 
better of him to leave him alone. He remarked that once 
or twice the dog, in trying to get a better hold of him, choked 
him badly, and that his weight upon his chest almost suffo- 
cated him. He had been playing that joke upon his em- 
ployer nearly six months with the greatest cunning in avoid- 
ing detection. “ It is a very convenient thing,” says a cer- 
tain writer, “for some breeders to insist that no mastiff” 
has a pedigree of forty years’ standing, who have “ manu- 
factured ” for our shores a big cross-bred dog that has been 
exhibited under the name of mastiff How can the descend- 
ants of Lord Darnley’s Nell be true “ old English mastiffs ?” 
How many “casts back” do Nell’s posterity give in a litter? 
What bone or bulk have they? Are not their limbs small, 
at any rate, relatively so ? Has not the rage for height in- 
corporated staghound or some tall breed, and resulted in the 
late leggy dog with little bone, light limbs, houndy in bar- 
rel, weak loin, flat flank, and cat hocks? Only aristocracy 
of the olden time could afford to preserve him in purity, and 
transmit him through long ages in his integrity. In my 
belief, it is, therefore, necessary to breed back from the few 
that now exist to the indigenous type through these confreres 
of the highest antiquity of pedigree, to restore the well-nigh 
lost mastiff to his original purity. 1. Y. W. 
Greenville, N. J. 
(To be continued.) 
THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE STANDARD 
AS IT APPEARS TO A DISTANT SPECTATOR. 
[It is rather late in the day to publish the following, but, 
coming from the Pacific coast, and from a writer free from 
prejudice,, who seems to have given the matter careful con- 
sideration, we think our readers will not regret the time 
spent in giving it a careful perusal. — E d.] 
Communications concerning the action of the Buffalo 
Convention have occupied a prominent place in the Fanciers' 
Journal until the number now before me contains little else 
but G. P. Burnham, attacks upon him and his defence. One 
who has read the “ Hen Eever ” cannot but be excused if he 
look for a motive of personal aggrandizement in an article, 
and especially a series of articles, by its author, but personal 
attacks are no answer to any line of argument, and it must 
be a source of regret to the readers of the “ Journal ” that Mr. 
Burnham has been so attacked. I believe I have read every 
article in each poultry journal, up to this date, attacking 
the new standard, and with the exception of the specific 
faults mentioned by Mr. Halsted I think the charges of 
any weight at all are resolved into the assertions that the 
standard must be faulty, because the action of the Conven- 
tion was hasty and consequently imperfect, and that but a 
small minority of fanciers, there assembled, decided points 
affecting the whole fraternity, and which should have been 
decided, so as to form a standard, only by the great majority 
of those interested, or at least by a body composed of such a 
majority. The whole argument seems to be, such a con- 
vention so assembled could not compile a proper standard, 
therefore they did not. Assertions that the whole thing 
was the result of the manipulation of a “ring,” by whose 
action everything, previously cut and dried, was rushed 
through to final action already by them determined on, 
seems to me, a distant spectator actuated by no motive of 
partiality, to be sufficiently answered by pointing to the 
names of the committees. As to the price, which has been 
the subject of most bitter comment (the editor of the Poultry 
Record , after recording in italics that he had bought a copy, 
announcing his determination never to keep the book on 
sale), perhaps the smallness of the discount and the fact that, 
to obtain the commission, the absolute purchase of so many 
copies is required, may have influenced the intensity and 
continuousness of the wail from these mulcted dealers. No 
one objected to the price of the old standard, to which 
the new is little inferior in size and quality ; and the extra 
amount to make up the one dollar was hardly asked for 
on account of the value of the book, but rather as an invol- 
untary contribution to the treasury of a national poultry 
organization of a sum which no one, it was imagined, 
would begrudge. This supposition, we now see, was a 
mistake, and the Society will probably act differently in 
issuing a second edition. It will also, it is presumed, 
hearken to those who deprecate the necessity of the pur- 
chase of an amended copy each year. This could be remedied, 
at least after the issue of the next revised edition, by publi- 
cation each year of addenda or alterations in a sheet which 
could be sold for a dime, or be sent forth by the poultry 
journals as a supplement. 
