842 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a reasonable length of time, no one came to 

 supply his wants he would utter a sharp, im- 

 patient bark. 



His happiest moments were when his 

 master would ask him if he wanted to go out 

 walking, and he would express himself very 

 forcibly and unmistakably in the affirmative, 

 and would, if asked at such a time, go to 

 each member of the family, stand upon his 

 hind legs, and give them each a kiss ; or, if 

 his master said to him, "Roll over, if you 

 want to go walking," he would at once lie 

 down and roll completely over. 



But his reasoning or thinking powers 

 were more clearly manifested in connection 

 with a rubber ball with which he played, 

 and which he would leave in various nooks 

 and corners. When asked, " Where is your 

 ball ? " he would, if it was not in plain sight, 

 bend his head down and stand for a moment 

 as if in deep thought, and then proceed at 

 once to get it, sometimes making a quick 

 dive under the lounge, or in a bedroom, un- 

 der the bed, or behind the curtains that 

 separated the dining from the sitting room, 

 always returning with it, and would look up 

 into one's face, his very countenance intelli- 

 gent with the answer, " Here it is." 



His master generally putting him to bed 

 at night, he usually lay upon the lounge, 

 waiting for the time ; and, after the fires 

 had been replenished and the clock wound, 

 he would get down and be ready to go. He 

 invariably waited until the winding of the 

 clock before preparing to start. 



In an evil hour "Gyp" strayed away 

 from home one day, and came back a badly 

 used-up dog. He had evidently been at- 

 tacked by some larger dog or dogs, and after 

 lingering for nearly two weeks he died from 

 the effects of the bites. 



During this time he seemed really more 

 like a " human being" than a brute. He was 



most patient and grateful for all the kind 

 offices and helpfulness of bis master and 

 mistress, and heroically submitted to have 

 his wounds washed and medicated, and, al- 

 though at times scarcely able to walk, he 

 insisted on being where his friends were, or 

 where he could see them. 



J. Andrew Boyd. 

 Ashley, Luzbenb County, Pa. 



THE " BLUE LAWS " A MYTH. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



" The early Puritans of New England, 

 who enacted the most ferocious of blue-laws, 

 who would not let a man step over a stone in 

 his path, or kiss not his neighbor's but his 

 own wife on a seventh day," etc. 



The above is a quotation from the very 

 first page of an article, in the last number of 

 The Popular Science Monthly, entitled Abol- 

 ish All Prohibitive Liquor Laws, by Appleton 

 Morgan. Xow, these mythical blue laws 

 never had any existence ; no law forbidding 

 a man to kiss his wife on the seventh day 

 was ever on the statute-books of any New 

 England colony. Prof. Johnston's History 

 of Connecticut, in the American Common- 

 wealths Series, or Palfrey's History of New 

 England, will show the origin of this absurd 

 myth. A glance at Blue Laws, and the Rev. 

 Samuel Peters, in either Appletons' or John- 

 son's Cyclopasdia will perhaps be enough for 

 the ordinary reader. 



Such careless misstatements naturally 

 cause the reader to question the accuracy of 

 the entire article. As you say in your edi- 

 torial comments on the " young moon " 

 error, " writers, and particularly writers on 

 scientific subjects, are under obligations to 

 know what they are talking about." 



Charles E. Davis. 

 Washtngton, February 20, 1894. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE UNEMPLOYED. 

 "TTTHEN a condition of things snper- 

 VV venes in which a considerable 

 percentage of the population is cut off 

 from the means of support by lack of 

 work, we need not hesitate to say that 

 something is wrong. We are not much 

 in the habit of attributing purpose to 

 Nature ; but the language of teleology is 

 sometimes convenient, and we shall per- 

 haps not be misunderstood if we say 

 that the apparently enforced idleness 



of thousands of men, with all the poverty 

 and distress thence resulting, can not be 

 part of Nature's plan, or at least can not 

 illustrate the normal working of natural 

 law. Nature, we know, is severe in her 

 methods, and recks little of human life 

 when she sets her forces of lire and 

 flood, of storm and earthquake in mo- 

 tion. There is nothing analogous to 

 these catastrophes in the social phe- 

 nomena before us to-day. What we see 

 is not the sudden extinction of human 



