DOGS AND DOG LAWS. 453 



eaten, gardens injured, and other losses, as for damages done to sheep ; and it 

 may be a much larger item. The entire cost of dogs to the loyal States may 

 safely be put down at $33,000,000. 



This sum of $33,000,000 may seem a small matter, yet it would pay nearly 

 half the present interest on the national debt ; it Avould buy 165,000 farms, at 

 government price for land, each year; it would support 165,000 farmers' daugh- 

 ters in boarding schools ; it would purchase 132,000 neighborhood libraries of 

 200 volumes each. 



HOW DOGS DISCOURAGE SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



" We should keep more sheep about here but for the dogs." A statement 

 like this should have silenced the wondering inquiry, " Why don't you keep 

 more sheep?" in any portion of this country within the last twenty years. We 

 have allowed the herbage of millions of acres to decay, and imported many 

 uaillious of pounds of wool yearly, because we chose to spend our substance in 

 feeding worthless dogs with mutton, in deference to the lazy habits and silly 

 prejudices of a class who dote upon the companionship of a dog. A southern 

 agricultural editor, disgusted with the popular partiality for a half-domesticated, 

 predatory animal, once lamented that civilization was not there sufficiently ad- 

 vanced to secure for sheep the favor extended to dogs ; and his dislike of dogs 

 was not lessened by seeing on many plantations more dogs in the pack than 

 there were sheep in the herd, nor by receiving letters from subscribers saying 

 they had " lost upwards of one hundred sheep by the depredations of sheep- 

 killing curs." 



Perhaps some sauntering hunter, stopping his accustomed pursuit of small 

 birds, of sweet carols and insectivorous habits, for more ambitious forays, his 

 fowling-piece instead of a Springfield musket on his shoulder, and a lank pointer 

 at his side, affects to doubt the reality of these damages. If his unimproving 

 pursuit has not destroyed his capacity for primary mathematics, let him note 

 a few of the facts and figures which swell the tide of testimony against the curs. 



Massachusetts had 378,226 sheep in 1840, 188,651 in 1850, 145,215 in 1855, 

 and 113,111 in 1860, and about 100,000 dogs. The wool crop depreciated 

 nearly half a million dollars in ten years — a tax of fifty cents per annum upon 

 each dog in the State, paid by wool-growers. The State Agricultural Society 

 gives the key to this depreciation : "The returns which this society have re- 

 ceived unanimously ascribe as a reason why no more are kept, the injuries in- 

 flicted by dogs." In 1860 the dog law realized S35,894 upon 32,707 dogs 

 licensed, while as many more were killed to avoid the tax, and an equal num- 

 ber escaped by the connivance of negligent or dog-sympathizing ofiicials. In 

 1861 there were but 16,905 licenses. The dogs are now reduced one-half, and 

 the sheep, in consequence, bid fair soon to be doubled. But the evil still exists; 

 a young man of this State who recently bought seventeen sheep, Avorth $10 

 each, lost thirteen of them in a single night. 



In Ohio, during five years ending in 1862, there were records of 203,824 

 sheep killed by dogs, and 127,418 injured, involving a loss of $558,733, or 

 $111,548 per year, when the average price of sheep was scarcely two dollars 

 pea* head. Of course there were damages which were never collected, mate- 

 rially swelling this aggiegate. In twenty-two counties in Ohio a decrease of 

 more than 300,000 sheep, in consequence of the ravages of dogs, between the 

 years 1846 and 1856, has been chronicled in the Ohio reports. Such items as 

 this from the Springfield Republic are constantly exhibited in Ohio papers: 

 " Twenty-five superior sheep belonging to E. B. Cassidy were killed by dogs a 

 few nights ago." 



A partial canvass of twenty-five counties in New York, which were not the 

 principal wool-growing counties, showed that 6,000 sheep had been killed in 

 1862. From such data B. P. Johnson, secretary of the New York State Agri- 



