An eminent authority once said of the breed, when writing of Champion Brickbat (who, by the way, won the Sixty Guineas Challenge Cup twelve times in succession), he could always forgive size for quality; and this good old dog in his prime probably weighed at least 31b. in excess of that given by the Irish Terrier Club as the standard weight - namely, 241b. There is forgiveness for having an Irish Terrier slightly on the big side, providing he is symmetrically built, but there is none for having him small and toyish.

Dr. Carey, too, once said (and we need no better authority) :

"I fear some of our English friends are rather inclined to like a type of Irish Terrier that we Irish do not consider quite the correct one - I mean the small, short-backed dog, with not enough coat, and lacking to a great extent the 'racing build.' I have no hesitation in saying, if this idea is persisted in, we shall have breeders breeding for Fashion, and Fashion's sake, rather than the correct and recognised type."

It was a humane feeling that prompted the Kennel Club to abolish cropping, or, rather, to exclude dogs so mutilated from shows held under its Rules. It was the first nail driven into the coffin of a senseless and cruel practice, now happily relegated to the limbo of forgotten absurdities. Fancy a cropped Terrier poking his head into a rabbit's hole; he would be certain to get his ears full of sand and dirt. Again, in working gorse, hedgerows, or long grass in wet weather, his poor ears would be sure to get full of water, when ear canker and premature deafness would probably result. The flaps of the ears act as natural protectors for such delicate structures, and in the past the removal of portions of the ears has ruined many a good dog. The cropping was not usually done until the dogs were a year old, and the pain the poor brutes had to endure, until the ears had healed, may be better imagined than described.

Fig. 99. - Mr. C. J. Barnett's Irish Terrier Champion Breda Muddler.

Some years ago nearly all the Irish Terriers one saw in Ireland had their ears cut off. They could hardly be described as cropped, as they were not evenly cut to a point to improve appearance, but simply cut straight off about fin. from the head. The writer, of course, is not speaking of exhibition dogs, but those one saw running about the streets in towns in the South of Ireland. It is not so now, for it is quite the exception to see dogs in the Emerald Isle so mutilated.

Since writing this article, the Irish Terrier world is poorer by the death of Mr. William Graham, of Belfast, or, as he was more generally known, Billy Graham, sometimes called "The Irish Ambassador." Billy was small of stature, but mighty in his ideas of Irish Terriers, witty, a rale Irishman- and had nothing to learn about the breed. One of his last good dogs was Champion Breda Muddler (Fig. 99), so named on account of a muddle that was made in his purchase from a ten-pound selling class at the Crystal Palace. The exact price he paid for him the writer cannot remember : it was somewhere about £20, and it was money well invested, as in addition to being a big prize winner himself the dog sired several champions.