[ London Times ]
This newspaper, most correctly known simply as The Times, began publication in 1785 and continues to this day.
The edition of March 26, 1863, carried, a report on what I believe is the first dog show held in London, the Chelsea Dog Show, where the reporter found himself impressed by the sporting dogs and toys, but had this to say about the Newfoundlands exhibited there:
The class of Newfoundland dogs is represented as we might expect to find it in London — that is to say, there are a couple of real Newfoundlands, not by any means very good specimens, and the rest of the class is made up by the huge black and white hairy brutes that wouldn't find shelter in St. John's. Painters and novelists have shed a halo of romance round these big water dogs, which pass as Newfoundlands. We might as well call them terriers, only that they have neither the terrier's intelligence or courage. Mr. Harrison's dog, Lion, which takes the first prize, is really a genuine Newfoundland, and so also is Mr. Hammond's, which is all we can say of them. Nearly all the others are the so-called Newfoundland dogs which are to be met in England but nowhere else.
The April, 1865, issue of Sporting Magazine carried a satiric look at this dog show and at dog fanciers — sort of a mid-19th-Century version of Christopher Guest's mockumentary Best in Show. The only mention of Newfoundlands occurs in the description of posters put up all over London to advertise the show:
About two or three years ago you might have seen, in and around, and all over London, all over its walls, scaffold-facings, house-sides, railway stations, omnibuses, and every conceivable place where advertising bills accumulate, and, unmolested, blaze forth in picturesque grandeur, and where the busy bill-sticker need not beware, an immense poster, got up in the largest and loudest coloured type, with the following edict — "GO TO THE DOG SHOW." Beneath this "broad hint" was a life-size representation of a monster Newfoundland or Mount St. Bernard dog, or any other giant of the canine race that you might chose to fancy him. There he was, a stuck-up dog, with a wonderful tail, and most benevolent countenance, inviting inspection and commanding admiration. As seen on the wall, he was decidedly of a doubtful classification; but an earnest and imploring look about him gave assurance that it was no trifling matter which brought him there. (307)