essive nervousness, weakness in physical form, the impairment of
breeding functions, and the predisposition to disease in its multiform
manifestations.

[Illustration: Edward Axtell, Jr.,

and One of His Boston Terriers]

[Illustration: E. S. Pollard,

A Large and Successful Breeder]

[Illustration: St. Botolph's Mistress King]

That eminent authority, Sir John Seabright, the originator of the early
race of bantams, known as the silver and gold spangled Seabrights, also
conducted an exhaustive series of experiments on the inbreeding of dogs
and demonstrated to an absolute certainty that the system was productive
of weakness, diminished growth, and general weediness. His experiments had
a world-wide reputation and the writer, when he first visited his large
estates near London, little dreamed that in after years he would
personally benefit by Sir John's work. I believe the prevailing ideas in
many quarters a number of years ago, as to the general stupidity of the
Boston terrier (and in some isolated cases I believed well founded), arose
from the fact that it was popularly believed he was too much inbred. I
will give just one case of inbreeding in our kennels, tried for
experiment's sake, as a warning. I took the most rugged bitch I possessed
and mated her to her sire, a dog of equal vigor. The result was six
puppies, strong, and as handsome as a picture. When two months old they
were sold to different parties on the Eastern seaboard, from Philadelphia
up to the Canadian line. This was before the West had "caught on" to the
breed. About two months later I had a letter from New York stating that
the pup was growing finely, but that he seemed to be hard of hearing. A
few days after this I received another epistle from Salem that the puppy I
had sent on was believed to be stone deaf. It would be superfluous to add
that the purchase money was returned, and the other four customers were
notified of the condition of the others. It may seem somewhat incredible,
but two out of the four stated that they believed the pups had defective
hearing, and declined to receive their money back, and the other two
stated that before my notification they had never observed that their dogs
were deaf. Here was a case of the entire litter being perfect practically
in every other respect, and yet every one stone deaf, and in my estimation
not worth a sou. As we have never had a case of deafness in our kennels
before or since, we attribute th