o 



46 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



footed frioncl they have — if every line of tlie 

 foregoing- quotation does not show that the mis- 

 ajDj^lied, dehiding term of '^rabies" has nothing- 

 really whatever to do witli the rare and fatal 

 disease of ]i3'drophobia, and that all the insanities 

 in the canine creation have been most erroneously 

 covered by an inapj)ropriate term ; and that, Avhilo 

 it has decreed many a dear and faithful creatin-e 

 to a cruel and unnecessary death, has, at tlio 

 same time, doomed the gentle mind of a lovely 

 girl (I speak from individual knowledge) to months 

 and even a year, if for a time incurable or in- 

 tangible, still to the most horrible terror of an 

 impending death, arising from the mere bite of 

 a momentary insane, but thereafter to be an affec- 

 tionate and faithful, companion. I had such an 

 example of this that I shall not easily forget it. 

 Destruction to this poor little pet was authori- 

 tatively decreed by the higher powers ; cauterism, 

 Avhich would for ever have stained the fairest skin, 

 was suggested ; but the pet, while consultations 

 were going on, suddenly vanished, and, to my 

 intense amusement, tlie heads of the house and 

 the head of the veterinary surgeon overawed us 

 all, or sought to do so, by saying ^^ how correct 



