DOG. 



301 



or a gnat, or any thing within the possible range ot 

 the scale of animated being, gives a taint to the mind 

 of deeper enormity, because more direct and more 

 lasting in its consequences than many are aware ot. 

 The body of every animal is all that, as a substantive 

 existence, is palpable to our senses ; in fact, it is the 

 animal to our understanding ; for, though we see the 

 action of lite in the living animal, we do not see the 

 life itself ; therefore, we never can divest the body of 

 an animal, or even a fragment of one, of that associa- 

 tion with life which is grounded upon all that we can 

 possibly observe. Wherefore, every indignity which 

 is wantonly, and in the spirit of triumphing over it, 

 offered to "even the mutilated fragment of an animal, 

 tells as a step in cruelty towards the whole of ani- 

 mated nature, and towards man himself among the 

 rest. Even the boy who kicks about the head of a 

 pullet, or the foot of a lamb, which has been thrown 

 into the street as useless, is taking one step in cruelty ; 

 and it only requires a sufficient number of steps, 

 however small they are individually, to debase him to 

 the commission of murder or parricide. 



As this question, or rather the many important 

 <]uestious which this view of the subject opens up, are 

 new, it may be necessary to caution the reader, 

 who has been accustomed to only the common bio- 

 graphical gossip, or the systematic dreams and con- 

 jectures on the natural history of the dog, that 

 this bears more directly on the spirit of the part of 

 that history which will come vrithin the scope of 

 reason and certainty, than anything else which we 

 could say on the general subject ; while, in addition 

 to this, it bears very strongly upon one of the most 

 important questions in human conduct, both in an 

 individual and a national point of view ; and we have 

 taken it in conjunction with the cruelty practised 

 towards the donkey tribe, in order that the ethical 

 part may thereby be rendered more clear and more 

 striking. 



In the first place, this cruelty is done to the animal 

 in a state so young, that it can have done no harm, 

 and might be urged on to do good by kind treatment ; 

 whereas, in the harsh treatment of the donkey, there 

 is generally some sort of plea of urging it on to 

 speed, and therefore the cruelty here becomes cruelty 

 onlv by being excessive ; whereas the other is en- 

 tirely gratuitous cruelty in the very smallest atom of 

 it. In the second place, the cruel treatment of the 

 donkey presupposes that there is a feeling of the 

 present usefulness of the animal ; and this, again, 

 requires that the person who perpetrates this kind ot 

 cruelty is more advanced in life, and also in vice, 

 than the mere children who perpetrate that other 

 cruelty, which societ}', with one consent, look upon us 

 a very innocent matter of course. Now, there is 

 always more harm done by corrupting the innocent, 

 than by plunging those who arc already initiated a 

 little deeper into vice. 



So, also, when we look at the youth, the infancy 

 we may s-iy, of the puppies and kittens which are 

 thus daily destroyed, we find that this tendency to 

 disregard animal life, and therefore to treat animals, 

 including human beings, with cruelty, operates against 

 animals when they are in their most helpless, though, 

 at the same time, their most interesting state. There 

 is no question, therefore, that this wanton destruction, 

 in their helpless days, of those animals which stand 

 to man in a relation of companionship so much 

 closer, and more nearly equal, than is found in any 



other case, must have the effect of producing indiffer- 

 ence to human children ; and this is the gravamen 

 of the evil, both in the conduct of the grown up, 

 toward children, and in the conduct as between child 

 and child. It is in early childhood, far more early 

 than we are in the habit of supposing, that the die of 

 human destiny is cast ; and if we habituate the young 

 from their infancy to scenes of cruelty, and cases of 

 uncalled for indignity offered even to the dead bodies 

 of helpless and unoffending animals, we may rest 

 assured that we are shaking with more perilous and 

 certain destruction the two main pillars which uphold 

 the fabric of a sound and wholesome population, than 

 by any single perpetration by the random villains of 

 mature age, which will occasionally spot and deform 

 even the best societies. This must suffice for the 

 moral argument, though it is eminently deserving of 

 far more, and might be made the principal theme of 

 as useful a book as ever was written by man. But 

 we must shortly advert to our proper subject, the 

 physiological view of the case, which is, however, 

 inseparably connected with the moral one. 



As we have already seen, in our brief notice of the 

 countries where dogs are found, they are distributed 

 over the whole earth, from the equator to the thick- 

 ribbed ice at the poles, and to the remotest isles of 

 the ocean, often where there are no mammalia except 

 themselves, except it may be some rats, or other 

 murine animals ; and, though it is incidental, yet it is 

 proper to add, as a corroboration of what we are 

 about to state, that the incredible numbers, and the 

 wonderfully rapid breeding of those small animals, 

 offers another subject well worthy the attention and 

 the profoundest examination of every one who wishes 

 to look on the works of the Almighty with an eye of 

 usefulness and gratitude. We have seen, also, that 

 the dogs can accommodate themselves more com- 

 pletely to circumstances than any other race, more 

 completely than man himself. In, or nearly approach- 

 ing to, a state of nature, they may be said to be 

 tempered to every wind of heaven proof to all 

 temperatures invincible by fatigue, and patient and 

 enduring under hunger. They are, in short, the 

 mammalia of the greatest labour ; and one little dog 

 will perform greater feats in the sum total of activity, 

 during a single day, than the strongest lion in the 

 wilds of Africa could endure in a w"fcek. Besides, the 

 foot of the dog is for the earth only, to run, to walk, 

 to leap, or to unearth his prey, or dig, or otherwise 

 trim his habitation. In point of fecundity, dogs are 

 also exceedingly prolific, and they are no more 

 seasonal in their breeding than the human race are, 

 We have said that a litter consists of about a dozen 

 sometimes, and there is no doubt that, with proper 

 treatment, it might amount to this at all times, which 

 might be averaged at something like at least a ten- 

 fold increase in the year, after making ample 

 allowance for contingencies. 



That there is purpose everywhere in nature, any one 

 who is not grossly ignorant must admit. But, here is 

 an animal, more completely distributed over all the 

 earth, more completely adapted to all change of 

 circumstances than any other creature upon the 

 earth, endowed ,vith more sagacity than any other 

 creature upon the earth, not excepting even man. 

 himself, if he neglects the cultivation and use of his 

 mind, and capable of breeding more rapidly than any 

 other creature of the same size : here is, in short 

 the chief jewel in nature's living casket. Can we 



