, a well-known dog-dealer of Birmingham, and it is no doubt
to Hinks that we are indebted for the elegant Bull-terrier of the
type that we know to-day. These Birmingham dogs showed a refinement
and grace and an absence of the crook-legs and coloured patches which
betrayed that Hinks had been using an out-cross with the English White
Terrier, thus getting away further still from the Bulldog.

With the advent of the Hinks strain in 1862 the short-faced dog fell
into disrepute, and pure white became the accepted colour. There was
a wide latitude in the matter of weight. If all other points were
good, a dog might weigh anything between 10 and 38 lbs., but classes
were usually divided for those above and those below 16 lb. The type
became fixed, and it was ruled that the perfect Bull-terrier "must
have a long head, wide between the ears, level jaws, a small black
eye, a large black nose, a long neck, straight fore-legs, a small
hare foot, a narrow chest, deep brisket, powerful loin, long body,
a tail set and carried low, a fine coat, and small ears well hung
and dropping forward."

Idstone, who wrote this description in 1872, earnestly insisted that
the ears of all dogs should be left uncut and as Nature made them;
but for twenty years thereafter the ears of the Bull-terrier continued
to be cropped to a thin, erect point. The practice of cropping, it
is true, was even then illegal and punishable by law, but, although
there were occasional convictions under the Cruelty to Animals Act,
the dog owners who admired the alertness and perkiness of the cut
ear ignored the risk they ran, and it was not until the Kennel Club
took resolute action against the practice that cropping was entirely
abandoned.

The president of the Kennel Club, Mr. S. E. Shirley, M. P., had
himself been a prominent owner and breeder of the Bull-terrier. His
Nelson, bred by Joe Willock, was celebrated as an excellent example
of the small-sized terrier, at a time, however, when there were not
a great many competitors of the highest quality. His Dick, also, was
a remarkably good dog. Earlier specimens which have left their names
in the history of the breed were Hinks's Old Dutch, who was, perhaps,
even a more perfect terrier than the same breeder's Madman and Puss.

Lancashire and Yorkshire have always been noted for good
Bull-terriers, and the best of the breed have usually been produced
in the neighbourhoods of Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Bolton, and
Li