ranging between 4lb. and 55lb., and, although in some places he had a reputation for pugnacity, this was more due to his surroundings than otherwise, though those dogs trained to fight in the ring were as savage as savage could be. The typical dog of Bill Sykes, the typical burglar-ruffian, was a bull terrier, a thick heavy-headed creature, with bandy legs, a patch on his eye, and one or two on his body. "William" did not like him all white; a pure dog in colour and reputation would be out of place in such company, and, perhaps for this reason, the more respectable and peaceable member of society, with a fondness for a game terrier," preferred the entirely white dog; hence its popularity, and possibly the reason why only such came to be looked upon as the genuine article. Still there were others which obtained a better education than the pugilist could give, and they were useful as companions and as watch dogs.

I fancy that most of us at one time or another have owned a bull terrier. The undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge were fond of him, and at one time it formed as much a part of their equipment as a "top hat" does at the present day. One of the first dogs I ever possessed was a bull terrier, a fawn dog with a black muzzle, and about 30lb. in weight. He was a really good-looking dog, though he cost but

half a crown when a month old, purchased from a sporting barber in a country town, whose reputation for dogs was as high as that he possessed as a shaver.

The puppy was christened Sam," for a long time he was my constant companion, and became an adept at hunting rats by the riverside, a capital rabbiter, and as good a retriever as most dogs. He would perform sundry tricks, find money hidden away, and could be sent back a mile for anything-a glove, a stick-that had been left behind. He would take part in a game at cricket, and fielded the ball so expeditiously that on more than one occasion Sam and I played single wicket matches against a couple of opponents, and as a rule came out successfully. Altogether this was a kind of dog that could not be obtained now, but on his father's side he came of a fighting stock, and as he grew older he developed a love for a "turn-up" with any passing canines, which caused me to part with him. He was the death of about a couple of dogs, but otherwise he was the gentlest of the gentle; our cat kittened in his kennel, and with one little shaggy dog belonging to a friend he struck up a great friendship. Prince, this cross-bred creature's name, was one day turned over and worried by a bully of a sheepdog. In canine language he came and told the story of his

woe to Sam. The two set out together, and on our cricket field came across the bully; Prince and Sam went up to him, the latter, with his tail held stiff and looking savage, seized the sheepdog by the throat, threw him over by a fair buttock in the Cumberland and Westmoreland style of wrestling, then, turning his back on his fallen foe, raised one of his hind legs, and, after treating him in the most disdainful manner possible, trotted off with his little friend.

Poor Sam! I even now think of him with regret. We had to part, and he was sent to Manchester to do duty as guard in a warehouse and shop. But the smoky Cottonopolis he did not like, nor the confinement; instead of snarling and barking at the tramps, he "canoodled" with them and made friends

-as a watch-dog he was useless. Perhaps he pined for Prince and the cricket field, for the riverside and the country walks. He died of a broken heart, for he did not like the large town's ways.

This was nearly thirty years ago, and friends of mine still tell me "You never had another dog like Sam," or "Sam was the best dog you ever had." I knew another bull terrier about this period that would jump into the water off the highest bridge that could be found, and, as a set off would put out the flame of a blazing newspaper, or crush a redhot cinder in his mouth-surely an apt pupil of the

"asbestos man," and of the "

professor" who dives into a tank from the top of the Westminster Aquarium. But such dogs as these were not show dogs, and, no doubt, shows really made the bull terrier as he is to-day, and caused the almost total extinction of any other bull terrier excepting the white ones. Why white was eventually fixed upon as the correct colour I have already surmised, and as a rule modern specimens breed pretty truly to this hue, though cases of a coloured mark on the eye or on the ear crop up in nearly every litter. Usually such dogs were destroyed at their birth, as being unfitted for success on the bench, though an instance. will be mentioned later on where a so-called patched dog did a considerable amount of winning.

To the late Mr. James Hinks, of Birmingham, a noted dog-dealer, who died in 1878, we, in a great measure, owe our present strain of bull terriers. Somehow or other he contrived to get together a strain of white dogs, specimens of which he exhibited with great success at some of the earliest shows, but the very earliest canine exhibitions did. not provide classes for bull terriers.

It was early in the fifties that James Hinks began to cross the patched, heavy-headed bull terrier, used for fighting, with the English white terrier, and in due time he produced dogs handsome enough to make a

name for themselves, and able to revolutionise the variety. Some of the old "doggy men " said this new breed were soft and could not fight. "Can't they?" said Hinks, when talking to a lot of his London friends at the Holborn Horse Repository dog show in May, 1862. "I think they can." "Well,"

case of

said one of the London school, "let's make a match." Hinks, nothing loth, did make a match, and backed his bitch Puss-that day she had won first prize in her class-for £5 and a champagne, against one of the short-faced patched dogs similar in weight. The fight came off the same evening at Bill Tupper's well-known rendezvous in Long Acre. It took Puss half-an-hour to kill her opponent, and so little the worse was she for her encounter that she appeared on the bench next morning, a few marks on her cheeks and muzzle being the only signs of the determined combat in which she had been the principal over night. When accounts of this became bruited abroad, although it was not generally believed, the popularity of the "long faced" dog was established. This, however, is somewhat of a digression.

Birmingham in 1864 followed the example of the London committee in providing a class for bull terriers, and it had an excellent entry of twenty-eight. Here Hinks won first prize with Madman, and