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Dear Jack-in-the-Pulpit: 

I way lying at my master's feet the other evening when his sister was reading to him out of St. Nicholas (which they think very much of, by the way) about the advanced ages of dogs and other animals, so I thought I would get her to write to you and tell you about a dog that is big if he isn't old. 

I was given to my little master on his twelfth birthday, and I think everything of him, and he thinks just as much of me, you may be sure. 

I am a full-blooded Newfoundland dog of the St. John's breed; I am one year old, my weight is 145 pounds, my height 33 inches, my length from tip of nose to tip of tail is 70 inches, and what is more, dear Jack, I am still growing. 

Every day I go with my master to a restaurant to get my meat, and I carry the basket in my mouth there and back. 

I am the biggest dog in this city, and I heard a lady say one day that when I growl it shakes the house. I expect that you will think me a very self-conceited dog; but everybody tells me that I am noble and handsome, so I begin to think that it is so. 

Yours truly, 
LIONEL LOVERING P.S. Lionel is my real name, but everyone in the family calls me Lion for L.L. 

From ST. NICHOLAS MAGAZINE, December, 1884 Minneapolis, Minn., October 2d, 1884