')40 PACT AGAINST FICTION. 



annual epidemic of the common distemper; but 

 that if a mad dog, that is a delirious dog-, such 

 as the one that the post-mortem examination proved 

 to be, driven mad from a pin having 2)ierced and 

 become fixed in the stomach, a notice of which 

 appeared in the Macclesfield Press, bit anything 

 or anybody, the person so bitten must die of hydro- 

 phobia ; the patient would be just as likely to die 

 a death of pins ! 



Another vulgar superstition pervades the public 

 mind, and it is, that if a dog in a healthful state 

 at any time bit anybody, if, years after, that dog 

 should go mad with hydrophobia, the person he 

 had bitten wlicn he was in a healtliful state would 

 follow suit, and become as mad as the dog that 

 died, and consequently cease to exist. 



Again, while considering this unhappy and use- 

 lessly distorted subject, people and the press seem 

 to forget that it is the months of April and May 

 iio every consecutive i/eai'y the identical season at 

 ivldcJt the common distemper, and consequent mad- 

 ness in some cases, so frequently occurs. Every 

 kennel of hounds and greyhounds, setters, jiointers, 

 and spaniels, where many of the young of either 

 sort come togetlier, is sure to suffer from the 



