I refer to an older column of Cecil’s from 1978: bulldog article.
Disclaimer: in comparing types below, I am not intending any disrespect toward the individual English Bulldog – although the breed has been made less athletic, the individual dogs are not at fault and I’ve known some English Bulldogs with sterling personalities and many fine qualities.
In the column, Cecil refers to the bulldog as if the modern type known as the English Bulldog, the bowlegged, wrinkly, asthmatic-sounding dog with the pushed-in nose, was developed for bull-baiting. This is, as far as I can tell, not true. In fact, the “historical bulldog” was a taller, more athletic dog very unlike the English Bulldog. Apparently the EB was developed after bull-baiting was outlawed and the “historical bulldog” was out of a job.
Frankly, Cecil’s assertion that the English Bulldog’s shortened (brachycephalic) skull and turned-up nose help him breathe while holding onto a bull’s swelling nose sounds like an urban legend devised after the fact to explain something, the sort of thing Snopes would debunk.
Here’s an article about the American Bulldog, which did not undergo nearly as much alteration as the English, and thus closely resembles the ancestral bulldogs which first bore the name “bulldog.” note the English Bulldog article expressly addresses the modern modification made to the breed (long after the name “bulldog” was in use).
Here’s another, longer site I admit I haven’t thoroughly vetted, but it’s a non-Wikipedia reference on bulldog history if you prefer.
Lastly, I’ll present Diane Jessup’s history of the pit bull because it contains a lot of pictures and discussion of the ancestral bulldogs from which the pit bulls were developed. Read with the caveat that Jessup is opinionated and sometimes problematical in her assertions, but this article does, I think, have some value, and it largely serves my point.
Anyway, I know this isn’t a high-priority issue for most people, but in the interest of being as correct as possible, I thought it was worth bringing up.