[ London Times ]
This newspaper, most correctly known simply as The Times, began publication in 1785 and continues to this day.
The June 21, 1865 edition of The Times carried a legal notice about a case involving a Newfoundland attack:
This case involves a charge against a tavern owner for "keeping a ferocious dog unmuzzled." It seems a young man went into the pub asking for some water, and was sent to an outside area of the tavern reserved for skittles (an early form of bowling). "The witness went to the skittle ground, when just outside a large Newfoundland dog jumped at his throat, and on putting up his arm to protect himself it was bitten. The dog was loose and unmuzzled."
The case was ultimately dismissed on something of a technicality: the court did not have jurisdiction over the matter because the dog was on private property, even though the mother of the victim claimed the Newfoundland had bitten a child some months earlier, and had as well bitten some of the employees of the tavern. While the magistrate agreed that the owners of "places of public entertainment" should be held liable for the actions of their dogs, such was not the legal status in England at the time.