'20 THE DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 



climate favourable to health, life, and increase, 

 co increase in a higher ratio than the ordinary 

 means of subsistence, a check is needed, that the 

 mouths be not too many for the available food, 

 or, in other words, that the increase of the one 

 should bear a due proportion to that of the 

 other. Even intelligent man feels the moral 

 check too feeble. We are assured in Holy Writ 

 that we shall always have the poor with us, 

 which all experience confirms a proof of the 

 inadequacy of this check. Amongst brute 

 animals and the remark especially applies to 

 fish the only natural checks are feebleness, 

 disease, and death, with the evil of degeneracy 

 affecting the whole race. 



AMICUS. Notwithstanding all the objections 

 which have been made to the doctrines of 

 Malthus, I cannot but think he is right, and, 

 like you, I can hardly avoid adopting his 

 principles. When in Constantinople, I wit- 

 nessed what seemed to me in exact accordance 

 with them, in the instance of the canine race, 

 there free and unowned, living as best they 

 can, and one hardly knows how. Now, what 

 is remarkable, each quarter of the city has a 

 limited number, and tolerably stationary, I was 



