French Bulldog"early years"

I was born on 2nd January 1912. It was said to have been a very cold day. At the time of the event, a bull bitch, belonging to my father, had whelped, having a litter of four. He placed the bitch and the four pups at the foot of my mother´s bed, saying that it was too cold to leave them in the kennel outside. It was a familie joke for years, that I had been reared with a litter of toy Bulldogs.
From the age of three I can remember listening to arguments and rows, amid much table thumping, about the qualities, merits and faults of this breed of dog. These discussions came from various uncles and aunts, cousins and nephews, who were all breeders. I remember hearing so many times that dogs were not worthy of the name, unless the dog known as “Champion Tiger" was lurking somewhere in the pedigree. “Tiger” was in so many pedigrees, he must have been the greatest stud ever.
Very often the origin of the French Bulldog was debated, there were for and against the French connection. Mainly against the French was (uncle) Arthur Gutteridge, quite a well-known sporting personality of his day. He was, incidently, the Grandfather of Reg Gutteridge, the boxing expert and reporter, and Jackie Pallo, the well-known wrestler. He stated quite firmly that the breed was developed by the lace workers of Nottingham, so come forward you good people of this city with your photo albums and delve into your archives and records to help Uncle Arthur prove his theory. I can supply one very good clue, a name that I have carried in my memory for almost seventy years, Mr. Frank Tupper, a native of your city and breeder of these dogs. Perhaps relatives and descendants could supply some information about Frank and his dogs.
On learning of the Huguenots by history lessons at school and how the lace workers had settled in Nottingham, I began to wonder if they had brought some little dogs with them,, but of course, the bulldogs of those days were nothing like the bulldogs of today. Later on the life I had other reasons to investigate the settlement of Huguenots elsewhere, but could find no mention of dogs of any kind. There was a huge colony of these people in the Whitechapel area of London. They set up a weaving industry in Spitalfields. Still no trace of the dog! I am sure the breed was developed much later.
Even in the 1920´s you could not be 100% sure of what you would find in a litter, rose ears, coarse coat, the occasional long tail. As a young lad I spent hours massaging ears in one direction to make them stand upright, tulip fashion. Another name was bat ears.
An idea occurred to me which proved to be 100% succesful and corrected the ears in two weeks. A newcomer to the breeding circle asked my opinion on a litter of pups. Whilst I was vetting these, a newcomer entered the room, a beautiful light brindle pied,a show specimen if ever I saw one, except for one large fault; one ear up, and one ear down. I told the owner I could correct the fault even though the dog was two years of age. He was delighted and promised me one of the pups from the litter if I succeeded. When he saw how simple was the remedy he went back on his word and gave me half a crown.
Regarding the coareseness of coat, I remember one dog that part from head and ears had a coat as thick and luxurious as any Chow. We never used him for stud in case the coat was inherent. Perhaps he could have been the start of new breed? Whenever I walked him out, I had a great many enquiries about the name of this breed. I said he was a Siberian Bulldog, it seemed to satisfy those who asked. A dog collar made and ornamented with badger hair was fashionable at this time, it looked just like a halo around the neck. When wearing the collar, this dog looked really beautiful!
Sometimes there would be a dog with the fore face a little longer than usual. The term Snipey Face was used to describe this fault. I often heard that this sort, in the past, were docked and cropped and sold to America as Boston Terriers. I have no reason to doubt this. I saw a great number of dogs that resembled this breed, even on the show bench.
The standard of judging seemed to range so much. More attention was paid to the social standing of the exhibitors than the merits of the dogs. There were a great many well-to-do people among the show folk.
Another fault was the protrusion of the tongue. We had a lovely bitch called Bev, her registered name was Madame Rosa. She weighed 10lb, small was beautiful to us, perfectly proportioned in every way, a real toy bulldog, but the tongue! The dog always seemed to wait until the critical moment, just as the judge was examining the front of the head and face, drawing his thumb down the dewlaps looking straight into her eyes then, just like a saucy child, out would pop two or three inches of pink tongue rolling down the front of her face. Poor old Arthur! I cannot recall the number of times he threatened the little bitch with strangulation. We bred from her, but she never produced another like herself, just run of the mill progeny.