246 



THE WORLDS LUMBER ROOM. 



and subject, as the reward for their services throughout the 

 year, to a general annual massacre to keep down their 

 numbers. 



As for the celebrated dogs of Constantinople (Fig. 50)) 

 to whom the scavenging of that city is mainly left, they 

 are creatures with whom, as a traveller wrote to us a few 



Fig. 50. STREET DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 



years ago, "all well-conducted sprigs ot canine nobility 

 would indignantly refuse to recognise any connection. They 

 have four legs and a weakness for barking and biting, but 

 here all resemblance to their European namesakes abruptly 

 ceases. Here they are the lords of creation, and though in 

 all conceivable stages of manginess and disease, are suffered 

 to lie unmolested in the middle of the streets, and receive a 

 sort of superstitious homage from their Turkish masters. 

 Not indeed that they have any recognised owners ; they are 

 the fourth estate of the empire, and exercise, so at least it is 



