DOGS AND DOG LAWS. 463 



gard of the interests of volunteers dependent on their flocks for the clothing of 

 their families. 



MISSOURI. 



Extensive injuries have been sustained by dogs in Missouri, yet the legisla- 

 ture has resisted the effort to procure legal protection. Instances, not unfre- 

 quent, are reported of large flocks driven into the rivers by packs of hounds 

 and drowned. A correspondent of the department is constrained to believe 

 that some of his neighbors think more of their dogs than they do of their 

 children. 



TENNESSEE. 



The secretary of state for the State of Tennessee writes that no laws for 

 the protection of sheep exist in that State, notwithstanding the persistent ef- 

 forts of farmers for many years to secure such an enactment. Damages have 

 been very serious here, affecting very materially the business of wool-growing. 



CONCLUDING SUGGESTIONS. 



It has been shown to the satisfaction of the reasonable reader that a large 

 portion of the dogs in the country are utterly useless ; that the cost of their 

 keeping, and the damages directly occasioned to farm stock, amount to an an- 

 nual tax of at least thirty-three millions of dollars ; that they discourage sheep 

 husbandry, and consequently woollen manufacturing, to the extent of many 

 millions more, which would otherwise be added to our productive industry ; 

 that they are property, and therefore taxable, and in their excessive multipli- 

 cation a nuisance to be regulated or abated ; and that, unfortunately, a weak 

 hesitancy about inaugurating taxation, not indicative of the true dignity and 

 proper independence of statesmen, has too often existed among legislators. 



The laws of the several States indicate a transition period between pioneer 

 life, with its inevitable dog companionship, and a state of permanent settlement 

 and superior civilization. The silly prejudice that allows dogs to trespass upon 

 a neighbor's grounds and destroy his sheep, while enacting laws to restrain 

 sheep from wandering from their owner's pasture, is rapidly giving way to a 

 common sense that would make restraint equal and just. 



In most of the States are certain provisions of a just law upon the subject, 

 but a lack of completeness, or want of penalty attached to neglect in enforce- 

 ment, render them partly inoperative, or wholly inefficient. In Pennsylvania 

 there is, practically, only a threat held over the heads of the dogs, for which 

 they seem to care very little ; in Maine, each separate township has the option 

 to ratify or nullify the general law — a non-committalism that is far worse than 

 no law ; in Ohio, dogs are instructed that it is unlawful for them to run at large 

 at night, but their owners are held to no proper responsibility for their effective 

 restraint ; and in most other States some radical defect exists. Massachusetts 

 has the best law. It taxes dogs from two to five dollars each ; owners are 

 made responsible, under heavy penalty, for their registry and taxation ; assessors 

 must make accurate lists, and evasions of the listing are heavily fined ; refusal or 

 neglect of officers to execute the law incurs a penalty of one hundred dollars ; and 

 untaxed dogs are killed without mercy, and district attorneys are requried to 

 prosecute officers who neglect to destroy them. 



Such a law, or one more guarded and efficient still, should be on the statute 

 book of every State. 



