104 Notes of the Month, $c. [JuLT, 



Mad Dog-alarm. " Mr. Editor, It was only last Sunday I was tak- 

 ing a walk, accompanied by my pointer, who was going an innocent trot 

 before me, when a ladies' school broke rank and file, and ran across the 

 road : my Juno, unaccustomed to revolt, seconded the movement by fol- 

 lowing them, which caused a complete consternation and rout ; and which 

 w r as not appeased till I got up to and assured them that my dog was not a 

 'mad-dog/ A passer-by condoled with the ladies on the ' awfulness' 

 of my sane Juno going without a muzzle, and recommended them not 

 to venture out again during this season till all dogs were muzzled, which 

 advice the ladies' preceptor stated her intention of obeying. This cir- 

 cumstance shows the excitement of the public mind at the present moment, 

 and I believe such a feeling is universally abroad ; but until Parliament 

 tax all dogs as rigidly as horses, the evil will continue. "W. F. M." 

 " Camberwell. " 



This letter is a specimen of the thousand and one sillinesses which 

 have filled the papers since the first alarms of hydrophobia this season. 

 Every cockney who promenades with " a pointer" prides himself on his 

 philosophy, and wonders that any body should be alarmed at being 

 hunted after by a dog. But if the police of Camberwell did their duty, 

 this coxcomb and his " pointer" would have been speedily put out of 

 the way of pursuing their frolics on the high road. The fact is, that the 

 public, instead of exhibiting any unjustifiable alarm, have rather exhi- 

 bited an unjustifiable apathy. What can be a greater impeachment of 

 public common sense than the popular exposure to the most horrible and 

 most incurable of all diseases, when its possibility might be almost extin- 

 guished by a few municipal regulations ? The streets are suffered to 

 swarm with dogs, while we know that the first week of hot weather will 

 render one half of them dangerous to human life. Every shop in every 

 lane has its mongrel, ready to spread death; every hut in the suburbs 

 has its nuisance of the same kind, sufficiently hazardous to the passers- 

 by, at all seasons, but in summer, as much to be dreaded as a wild beast. 

 A snap from one of those curs may inflict the most dreadful of all the 

 dreadful shapes in which death can assail the human frame. The heart- 

 lessness and utter disregard of human injury evinced by the keepers of 

 those animals, whether they be foolish old maids, making love to their 

 poodles, as a proof that they are capable of the tender passion for some- 

 thing on this earth ; or sauntering coxcombs, who, with all their pointers, 

 would probably not know a pheasant from a barn door fowl, are unpar- 

 donable. We only wish, that every owner of one of those animals 

 should first feel the advantages of its keeping, in a rabid snap to teach 

 them to feel for others. 



But the evil is so formidable, the chance of incurring it so frequent, 

 and the prevention so obvious, that the Home Secretary ought to take 

 instant measure to awake the slumbering activity of the magistrates and 

 other persons attending to the public welfare. At present it is not safe 

 to walk the streets. In scorn of all the placards ordering dogs to be 

 kept at home or muzzled, there are hundreds of dogs roaming about un- 

 muzzled. The provisions of the Grosvenor Act extended through Lon- 

 don would be a public benefit. A heavy fine inflicted on the owner of 

 every unmuzzled dog in the first instance, with damages to the amount 

 of the injury inflicted on any individual in the next; would be essential to 

 make the dog-lovers feel that they owed a duty to the community. 

 But the only security for keeping down the increase of the hazard in 

 every season to come, would be a heavy lax laid upon all dogs in towns. 

 Much as taxes may be disliked, this would be universally welcome. 



