338 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



seminatecl, and so fatal in its impossible-to-be- 

 mitigated result. 



At present, while I close this chapter in the 

 month of May, 1874, the public press teems with 

 vague assertions and impossible-to-be-carried-out 

 suggestions in regard to the merciless war sought 

 to be enforced against the poor dog, who, through 

 a miserable mistake, has become charged with a 

 disease which, in nine hundred and ninety-nine 

 cases out of a thousand, he does not possess. It 

 would take up too much space to dwell on these 

 fabulous assertions; but, in passing, I select the 

 last that I intend to notice from the Evening 

 Standard of the 1st of May. 



In that impression there is a notice copied 

 from the Dadij Telegraph, It is therein tugged 

 '' that an ownerless and stray dog is, potentially, 

 a mad dog, and a mad dog is neither more nor 

 less dangerous tlian a rattlesnake or a cobra di 

 capello.'' 



We need only read this to see liow slight the 

 foundation is for the charge made against all dogs 

 of being hydr(j})hobic, and at the same time how 

 little faith there ought to be placed in the cry 

 pervading certain classes of society, falsely, cruelly. 



