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CHAPTER V.

THE FOX TERRIER.

THE popularity of the fox terrier is undoubted. He is seen running at large in the streets of our cities and towns; in country places he abounds; and go where you will, half a dozen fox terriers are to be found for each specimen of any other variety of the canine race. Clubs are established to promote his efficiency and to add to his beauty. There is a so-called parent club, with a dozen minor affairs of the same kind, local and otherwise, and he has a monthly journal to look after his interests. Then the fox terrier had a special stud book; and a volume devoted entirely to this dog's history and description has been published, and met with unusual success, being now in its fourth edition-"A History and Description, with Reminiscences, of the Fox Terrier," published by Horace Cox, Bream's Buildings, E.C. Again, almost every man and woman who can distinguish between a St. Bernard and a mastiff confess to the impeachment that they are "good

judges of a fox terrier," and any exhibitor or other individual with fifty or a hundred pounds in his pocket to lay out on dogs, can so expend that sum, and join one of the clubs, when he will have a fair chance of being selected as a judge of the breed, and so become qualified (?) to aid in that capacity at any show to which he may be appointed.

There was a time when there were scarcely a score of men who knew a good fox terrier when they saw one; now, if one believes all that is told, thoroughly practical judges of the variety are to be found in thousands. That once famous exhibitor Mr. Thomas Wootton, who is now residing at Gunthorpe, Lowdham, near Nottingham, has lived to see this; but Mr. Henry Gibson, who had such a strong kennel at Brockenhurst in the New Forest, Mr. J. H. Murchison, Mr. S. W. Smith, Mr. W. Cropper, with others, the best judges of the variety to be found more than a quarter of a century ago, have gone the way of all flesh, and so have not had the misfortune to survive their reputations.

However, I shall not anticipate matters, but before dealing with the modern fox terrier must say something about his early history. When terriers. were first used for unearthing the fox there is no record to tell, and no doubt our earliest dogs of this variety were utilised for many purposes,

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