206 THE DOG TRIBE. 



this ancient privilege of using his dog in carts, had studied well the 

 nature of a dog's foot, they would have seen that each toe is movable, 

 and that the whole foot, as well as every toe, is admirably defended 

 by a very thick and tough skin, quite adapted to walk on pavements 

 or macadamised roads. Moreover, the dog in harness has no super- 

 incumbent weight pressing on his withers, as is the case with the 

 horse, when a man is astride of it. The act forbidding to the poor 

 man the use of his dog to draw a little cart is a bad one, and ought 

 to be repealed. I once witnessed, in the streets of Ghent, a most 

 laughable fray betwixt two kitchen-garden women and two dogs. 

 By bad driving, these worthy dames had let their dogs get too near 

 each other. A desperate fight ensued; the carts were upset; the 

 legumes trodden under foot, and the dogs worrying each other, 

 whilst the drivers, stick in hand, mixed obstinately in the raging 

 battle, each trying to rescue and preserve her own property, to the 

 infinite amusement of the surrounding spectators. 



Having contemplated the family of the dog when wild in the 

 woods, and also when under the tutelary hand of man, and shewn 

 how serviceable it is to him, if fully trained, and in proper hands, 

 I will finally consider it, in another point of view, which is anything 

 but favourable to it. There is a stain on its character fixed and 

 unalterable, which, like the blood-spot on the hand of Lady Macbeth, 

 can never be removed, even though Galen with all his knowledge, 

 and Hippocrates with all his drugs, could return from the grave and 

 direct all their energies to this one individual point. I allude to 

 canine madness, commonly called hydrophobia. As nobody seems 

 to know anything concerning the real nature of this terrible malady, 

 saving that it has its origin in the dog, and that by the bite of the 

 dog it is communicated to other animals, any speculation on my 

 part would be quite superfluous. The wolf, too, and the fox, both 

 cousin s-german to the dog, are strongly suspected to produce hydro- 

 phobia, and to inoculate others through the medium of the tooth. 

 When a man has received a mortal wound, and it has been pro- 

 nounced mortal by his attending surgeon, he knows the worst. His 

 solicitor arranges his temporal affairs; and his father-confessor pre 

 pares him for that awful change which death must soon produce. 

 But a man bitten by a mad dog, although in i'act the wound is a 



