e is no doubt that the sire
would be a wire-hair Fox-terrier, and, although the pedigree therefore
may not have been quite right, the terrier was invariably pure bred.

In the early days the smooth was not crossed with the wire to anything
like the extent that it was later, and this fact is probably the cause
of the salvation of the variety. The wire-hair has had more harm done
to him by his being injudiciously crossed with the smooth than
probably by anything else.

The greatest care must be exercised in the matter of coat before any
such cross is effected. The smooth that is crossed with the wire must
have a really hard, and not too full coat, and, as there are very,
very few smooths now being shown with anything like a proper coat
for a terrier to possess, the very greatest caution is necessary.
Some few years back, almost incalculable harm was done to the variety
by a considerable amount of crossing into a strain of smooths with
terribly soft flannelly coats. Good-looking terriers were produced,
and therein lay the danger, but their coats were as bad as bad could
be; and, though people were at first too prone to look over this very
serious fault, they now seem to have recovered their senses, and thus,
although much harm was done, any serious damage has been averted.
If a person has a full-coated wire-hair bitch he is too apt to put
her to a smooth simply because it is a smooth, whom he thinks will
neutralise the length of his bitch's jacket, but this is absolute
heresy, and must not be done unless the smooth has the very hardest
of hair on him. If it is done, the result is too horrible for words:
you get an elongated, smooth, full coat as soft as cotton wool, and
sometimes as silkily wavy as a lady's hair. This is not a coat for
any terrier to possess, and it is not a wire-hair terrier's coat,
which ought to be a hard, crinkly, peculiar-looking broken coat on
top, with a dense undercoat underneath, and must never be mistakable
for an elongated smooth terrier's coat, which can never at any time
be a protection from wind, water, or dirt, and is, in reality, the
reverse.

The wire-hair has had a great advertisement, for better or worse,
in the extraordinarily prominent way he has been mentioned in
connection with "faking" and trimming. Columns have been written on
this subject, speeches of inordinate length have been delivered,
motions and resolutions have been carried, rules have been
promulgated, etc., etc., and