334 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



under my command^ the more particularly that 

 when neededj if it were ever needed, I had 

 the means of callinii: in the best- medical as well 

 as veterinary advice that the nation contained. 



In winding" up my volume, perhaps the last 

 that will ever proceed from my pen, let me im- 

 press upon my readers some of the miseries I 

 have seen fix their terrible hold on the human 

 mind, the mind of both sexes, as well as the 

 really horrible cruelties I have now extensively 

 known to be enacted against the poor and inno- 

 cently suffering creatures, the most attached, the 

 most useful, and the most brave and faithful friends 

 of man. . 



It is known to everybody how fond ladies are 

 of their lap-dogs, or any of the canine race on 

 Avliom they lavish their care, or to whom they 

 assign a companionship that, by constant use, 

 becomes one of the amusements of their lives. 



In the course of my existence, it has come 

 occasionally Avithin my knowledge that ladies 

 and their waiting-maids have been bitten by 

 their canine pets, and when there has been any 

 constitutional or nervous tendency in the mind 

 — a species of morbid apprehension, needless in 



