394 INJUEIES INFLICTED BY DOGS. 



to the wool-growing interest. Last winter the Legislature 

 enacted a law requiring the Assessors to return a list of all 

 the dogs in their respective townships or wards. Up to the 

 present time I have returns from eighty counties eight 

 counties having failed to make returns ; but the returns from 

 the eighty counties furnish sufficient data ' to do some 

 figuring.' 



"Eighty counties return 162,933 dogs, or nearly 2,037 

 dogs per county; if the remaining eight counties, viz.: Allen, 

 Ashland, Fulton, Licking, Mahoning, Montgomery, Noble 

 and Putnam, maintain the same average, the complete returns 

 will then show 179,256 dogs in Ohio! This will give 4^ 

 dogs to every square mile in the State, 1 dog to every 13 

 inhabitants in the State. We have a population of 58 inhab- 

 itants to the square mile. 



"In 1860 the Legislature of Rhode Island appropriated the 

 requisite sum of money to enable the United States Marshal 

 to collect some special statistics of that State, among which 

 was dogs; the number returned by the Marshal was 6,854 

 dogs. Rhode Island has 1,306 square miles of territory, 

 173,869 inhabitants. This gives 5 dogs to every square 

 mile, or more than 1 dog to every 25 inhabitants, whilst there 

 are 133 inhabitants to the square mile. 



" The probabilities are that not more than half the dogs 

 in Ohio have been returned to the Assessors. Many instances 

 have come to my knowledge, where parties preferred killing 

 the dogs to paying taxes on them, and the dogs were 

 accordingly destroyed. In the city of Columbus, one ward 

 returns three dogs only ; but private information assures me 

 of more than forty in the same ward. Franklin county 

 returns 2,167 dogs, whilst well informed parties assert that 

 there are more than that number in the city of Columbus. 

 It is safe to assume that there are at least 200,000 dogs in the 

 State. 



" What does it cost to keep (feed) these dogs ? In towns 

 and cities it will be no exaggeration to value the food consumed 

 by dogs at fifty cents each per week, or twenty-six dollars 

 per annum ; it is worth just as much in the country or on the 

 farm to keep a dog,' but their food can be procured cheaper 

 there, and is worth at the lowest estimate ten dollars per 

 annum. If we estimate the cost of keeping the dogs in the 

 State at the town rate, the figures show that the cost of 

 keeping them is five millions of dollars, but if we take the 

 country rate it will amount to two millions of dollars these 



