I believe I am only repeating an admitted fact when I say that the progress of this breed in the last few years is almost without precedent. In 1878 the original supporters and discoverers of the breed were dropping off for want of encouragement. Amongst these I would name Messrs. Ridgway, Pirn, Jameson, Erwin, and Crosbie Smith. The Messrs. Carey still owned a good kennel, and Mr. Wm, Graham bred them more for work than show. Mr. E. F. Despard was winning with his Sporter (now in the possession of the writer), and his sons Tanner and Tanner II. The mother of these pups, Belle, was a very large grey bitch of the old sort. The old dog Sport was still being exhibited, and Banshee, a big bitch with a generous amount of bull in her, was a champion. The show bench at this period presented anything but a level appearance. At the time my brother and I entered the ranks of the Irish terriers' admirers, I believe there were not more than two English exhibitors besides ourselves. The many ridiculous awards of inexperienced judges exasperated the exhibitors, and at my suggestion the Irish Terrier Club was started. It is impossible to deny the influence exerted by the foundation of the club upon the improvement of the breed.

In Ireland it awakened the interest that lay dormant; in England it served to reveal to fanciers the existence of a game and little known terrier. It is now one of the most powerful subsidiary clubs. An Irish nobleman, Viscount Castlerosse, is its president, there are Irish and English vice-presidents, two hon. secs., a treasurer, and a mixed committee of ten, and about eighty members. It has issued a code of points and a list of gentlemen qualified to act as judges.

The rise of the breed is most marked by the fact that in the days referred to one class was barely filled at the Kennel Club shows. At the last Alexandra Palace Show I had five classes to judge, with an entry of thirty-three. Besides the London shows, it was only in Ireland that classes were given for Irish terriers; now no show, English or Scotch, of any consequence issues a schedule without one or two for this breed. The appearance of Mr. Ridgway's paper in "Dogs of the British Islands" also gave a considerable fillip to the breed; and even now there is little to add to the information therein contained. Mr. Ridgway, in favour of the purity of the breed, tells us with authority that they are indigenous to their native country, and mentions that fanciers can remember them fifty and sixty years ago. He also bears testimony to their being "particularly hardy, and able to bear any amount of wet, cold, and hardship without showing the slightest symptoms of fatigue. Their coat also being a hard and wiry one, they can hunt the thickest gorse or furze covert without the slightest inconvenience." Modern fanciers are able to indorse the correctness of every word in this description of their working qualities, and his further evidence of their "usefulness, intelligence, and gameness." Mr. Ridgway also writes: "As to their capability for taking the water, and hunting in it, as well as on land, I may mention as one instance that a gentleman in the adjoining county of Tipperary has kept a pack of these terriers for years, with which he will hunt an otter as well as any pack of pure otterhounds can".

Mr. Ridgway's perfect knowledge of the breed is shown in his code of points. All the discussions in the newspapers that I have taken part in have been, not for the airing of any particular crotchets of my own, but for the maintenance and upholding in their integrity to the letter of the Ridgway points, as against the endeavours of others to convince the public that the Irish terrier is a red fox terrier. The Irish Terrier Club's points are Mr. Ridgway's elaborated and explained. Importance is placed on the shape and general appearance of the dog, which should be easy and graceful; the lines of the body should be speedy, without signs of heaviness or anything approaching the cobby and cloddy. Mr. T. Erwin truly said of them that, though game as fighting cocks, they should look more like running than fighting. A sufficient amount of substance is quite compatible with this structure. There is an extensive medium between the "bone" of the whippit and that of a carthorse. It would not give a stranger a bad impression to describe them as a miniature Irish wolfhound in appearance.

If I were asked to name the most prominent characteristics in the temperament of the Irish terrier, I should reply, "Courage' and good temper".

Their courage is quite national in its quality, being of that dashing, reckless, "dare-devil" description that is associated with the human habitants of their native country. The Irish Terrier fears nothing that ever came on four legs with a furry skin. They have no caution in their gameness, but go straight at their enemy with a heedless pluck utterly regardless of consequences. They do not always conquer, but they do or die unless pulled off. It would occupy too much space to relate a few of the many instances of their courage publicly recorded.

I have read in the newspapers of a nine weeks' old pup killing a rat; of another puppy freshly cropped, with unhealed ears, rushing by older dogs of a different breed, and fiercely attacking and killing a fox, undergoing the whole time without a whimper the most terrible punishment. I know several that have killed their badger; and a letter in my possession describes an Homeric combat under water between an Irish terrier and an otter - the latter eventually succumbing. Their other quality is quite as bright a side to their character. Their good temper is remarkable in so game a terrier. Terrier men will bear me out that a quarrelsome dog is seldom truly game. I question whether any of my colleagues in the Irish Terrier Club can give an instance of one of the breed biting a human being. They are, therefore, peculiarly fitted for house-dogs where there are women and children. They make the most admirable companions, faithful, intelligent, and always full of high spirits. Whether accompanying their master out walking, following a trap or a bicycle, their never tiring liveliness will amuse their master and relieve his loneliness. The poaching blood they inherit from their ancestors gives them an instinctive love of a gun.

Sportsmen have not failed to recognise their advantages as rabbiting dogs. They hunt mute. They are a peculiarly hardy breed and seldom succumb to the many ills that puppyhood is heir to. Shows have done much for their outward appearance, and without that softening effect on the temperament which usually follows in its wake. It would be a poor show where perfection could not be made up with different parts from the body of the exhibits. "Spuds," the subject of the illustration, was a beautiful bitch in her youth and when in proper coat, she shows the long, parallel, wolfhound-like head. Her coat was as hard as cocoa-nut fibre, the colour, a bright, yellow red, the hue of September wheat, with the sun on it. She is properly leggy, long rather in body, and yet firmly knit together, and very full of the racing-build. The golden wheaten is also a good colour, but the mahogany red one sometimes sees is to be avoided as showing the bar sinister of the black and tan. Long legs and a smooth face are necessary characteristics; and short legs, profuse coat, and long hair on the face indicate mongrelism and Scotch blending. Much of the breed's recent advance is due to the improved knowledge of the judges.