DOG. 



yet it is doubtful whether the dog has had his fair 

 share of the advantages of civilisation, so as to be 

 able adequately to perform his part in the labours of 

 civil society. In the very lowest state of society (we 

 speak of nations, and not of individuals or classes in 

 the same nation,) the dog is, of course, a hunter for 

 his master ; and in the forest, and even in the flood, 

 the dog is by far the more independent and the more 

 successful hunter of the two, and could subsist a good 

 deal better without the man than the man could 

 subsist without him. 



As society advances a little, the dog becomes an ani- 

 mal of draught ; and we find him employed in this state 

 by the people of the extreme north, both in Asia and 

 in America ; and as those very northerly tribes are not 

 exactly inhabitants either of the land or of the sea, 

 but rather of the line where these meet, at least 

 during the time that the snow is on the ground, they, 

 of course, can make use only of an animal that can 

 subsist upon such animal food as they can then obtain 

 from below the ice. In some of the southern islands 

 the dog is bred for another purpose. In New Zea- 

 land, for instance, there are two species or varieties 

 of dogs, a large one, which is left free to seek his 

 own food in the woods, as he best may, and a smaller 

 one, which the natives keep in a state of domestica- 

 tion. The large one howls at the approach of the 

 New Zealanders ; and all dogs which are not recog- 

 nised by man as associates in some way or other, 

 growl, or howl and yelp, rather than bark as dogs do 

 in a domestic state. This change of the voice of the 

 dog in consequence of domestication, is an exceed- 

 ingly curious matter ; but it is a fact, and barking is 

 among dogs as much an effect of Civilisation, as 

 correct language and eloquent speaking are among 

 men. There is still a closer similarity. The style of 

 the language, not the mere propriety of the words, 

 but the tone in which they are uttered, is no bad 

 index to the general character and disposition of 

 human beings ; and so in like manner there is no 

 better indication of the general character of a dog 

 than his voice. The larger dog of New Zealand is 

 not, however, useless to the inhabitants of that coun- 

 try, for it is their principal animal food. Dogs are also 

 eaten by many of the islanders in the Pacific Ocean ; 

 and in China they are regularly fatted for the table, 

 and their flesh sofd in the butcher's shops. It is also 

 mentioned as an instance of the wholesomeness ol 

 dogs' flesh, that the celebrated Captain Cook was 

 mainly recovered from a very severe illness at sea, by 

 the broth and flesh of a dog. 



Indeed, there is no reason why these animals shoulc 

 not be cultivated as articles of food in every country 

 It is a pretty general law in the wholesomeness ol 

 animal substances, that if the labour of the animals is 

 not too severe, so that their muscular fibres 

 thereby rendered too rigid for mastication, their flesh 

 is juicy and racy, and easy of digestion, very much 

 in proportion as they are carnivorous. This holds 

 especially in the case of gut-birds and gizzard-birdi 

 among winged game , and even among the fishes, the 

 few which eat vegetable matter are not nearly so goot 

 or so wholesome as those which not only eat anima 

 food, but eat one another. A cod, for instance, is 

 very king of cannibals, and yet he is a most valuabl 

 fish , and the prince of our river fishes, the salmon 

 is so fond of eating up his smaller associates in th 

 stream, that he may be caught by an imitation of on 

 of them made of a bit of wood and painted. It 



pite, therefore, of all our prejudices, and prejudice 

 )f some sort or other lies at the bottom of all our 

 elf-inflicted miseries and privations in spite of 

 prejudice, it is really a grave question, and one in 

 which we have the analogy of nature pointing to the 

 affirmative, whether the dog ought not to be regularly 

 )red and fed for the table, as a matter both of good 

 aste and of sound domestic economy. As matters 

 stand at present, it is pretty well understood that all 

 dead dogs are not thrown away, but that not merely 

 he humbler classes, who must be contented with a 

 )enny pie or a twopenny sausage, but more dainty 

 >alates, are, every day that the sun rises, fain to 

 omfort their stomachs with some such viand as a 

 ; savoury pate," containing a portion of a dog, 

 and it may be with a portion of a cat, which cat 

 Tiay have been doomed to suffer the torture of St. 

 Bartholomew at the hands of some cat stealing and 

 skinning hag. 



These matters are at least worthy of some consi- 

 deration, the more so when we call to mind how 

 comparatively few of the vast numbers of the young 

 of those very fertile animals are brought up alive, and 

 how many of them are cast away almost as soon as 

 they are dropped, and thrown on laystalls and in 

 ditches, and not unfrequently in the streets of the 

 most crowded neighbourhoods, offending the eye, 

 and tainting the atmosphere with corruption and 

 disease. And it must be that the taint of such 

 exhibitions fall more heavily than upon the mere 

 atmosphere, because they display a recklessness for 

 animal life which is more numerous in its instances, 

 more loathsome in its displays, and every way more 

 revolting than even that brutal cudgelling of donkeys 

 which some of our legislators have seen meet to 

 select as the special subject of their wisdom. We 

 do not commend the beating of the animals in 

 question, nor would we be understood as wishing to 

 say anything in disparagement of that wisdom that 

 strong impulsive gravitation of sagacity by which any 

 one subject is chosen in preference to another as the 

 butt of experimental legislation. But, when we com- 

 pare the two cases together, it is impossible not to 

 see that there is an occasional attempt made to strain 

 at the gnat and swallow the camel. 



The disregard of animal life, more especially canine 

 life, which is produced by this incessant murder of 

 the innocents, is much greater than that resulting 

 from any other cause ; and it has this enormity in it, 

 that it goes directly to corrupt the very young, and 

 give them countenance and encouragement in the 

 perpetration of cruelty, and of cruelty to that race of 

 animals which, being more directly the associates of 

 man than any other animals, should not, in a pet 

 individual, or even in any dog considered as pro- 

 perty, or of whom any one can say " my dog," and 

 quote the adage, " Love me, love my dog," not in 

 any of these lights, but generally as a race, and 

 because of the superior endowments with which, as a 

 race, nature has furnished them, it is our first duty 

 toward animated nature to foster and cherish them ; 

 but, instead of this, we are strangely taught that it is 

 matter of course, nay, matter of duty, to take them in 

 their helpless state and drown them in cesspools or 

 kennels, or batter them about in the street with more 

 gratuitous cruelty than we would ever think of bat- 

 tering that which never had any life. 



Any ignominy offered to the body of that which 

 once was alive, whether the living thing is an elephant 



