450 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



DOGS AND DOG LAWS. 



" Beware of dogs."— St. Paul. 



Of all the fi^mily of the Sanguinaria, the genus Canis familiaris is univer- 

 sally known and generally tolerated by man, while C lupus and C. aureus, the 

 northern wolf and Asiatic jackal, the congeners, and, indeed, the original pro- 

 genitors of the dog, are universally execrated. From so detestable an origin 

 the dog has won the affections of the human race by many instances of fidelity 

 and gratitude, treating a sympathy no doubt intensified by contrast of such 

 qualities with the meanness of his origin. 



The dog, in the Bible, is synonymous with things unclean and disreputable 

 and mean. Job, when derided, reminded his self-appointed tormentors that 

 their fothers were men whom he would have disdained to place with the dogs 

 of his flock. David, in the depth of his humiliation, when complaining that he 

 had been brought to the " dust of death," and that his bones looked out and 

 stared at him, exclaimed bitterly, "Dogs have encompa.ssed me." And St. 

 John, in his revelations, by way of antithesis to the blessedness of those enti- 

 tled to " enter in through the gates into the city," adds : " For without are dogs, 

 and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever 

 believeth and maketh a lie." The only scriptural mention of a benefit received 

 from a dog is in the memorable case of Lazarus. 



Dogs have been of great service to man, and few, if any, would favor their 

 extermination. Poets have sung their praises not alone in doggerel, but in ex- 

 alted numbers ; and women have petted them from the earliest historic periods, 

 Children have fondled them, abused them with more or less impunity, and 

 cherished for them an affection worthy of a higher object. 



A few dogs, well trained and good-tempered, might be tolerated. But when 

 they swarm over the land, making night dismal with their bowlings, and ban- 

 ishing sleep from the invalid's eyes, when sheep are slaughtered mysteriously, 

 and cattle are mangled, and when every month renews the horrible, ghastly 

 Bufferings of the victims of hydrophobia, it is time that sentimentalism and 

 feminine tenderness for a half savage brute should measurably vanish from a 

 dog-cursed community. 



When such a period has arrived, the usual and effective expedient to limit 

 and restrain the evil has been taxation. England has long had a dog tax of 

 twelve shillings sterling upon everything of the dog kind except the shepherd 

 dog. Scotland and Canada have taxed them. Indeed, dog taxation in some 

 form has been resorted to in every civilized country. Many curious police and 

 sanitary regulations have existed. In Munich, Austria, each quarter is obliged 

 to send all its dogs to the police on a certain day, twice every year. If found 

 in health, the dog receives a ticket which he Avears round his neck ; if old or 

 unsound, he is condemned to death. Any dog without a ticket is liable to suffer 

 death. In this country there is an annual slaughter of the dogs in every city, 

 in default of muzzling in obedience to municipal regulations. Such regulations 

 are imperative, and would be made in self-preservation, even if a dog were a 

 gacred animal, or surrounded by all the safeguards of special laws or constitu- 

 tions. Despite all caution, every year adds many new cases of hydrophobia, in 

 all sections of the land, to the list of that fatal, most dreaded, and dreadful of 

 all diseases. One human life thus sacrificed could uot be atoned for by the 

 lives of all the dogs in the land. 



