END OF POOR OLD PUG. 149 



our streets, apparently adapted to no useful purpose whatever ; whereas the Pug- is 

 capable of being made both a good guard for the house, and a good vermin dog. 



The following Letter, of the date of April 1817, intituled the * END OF POOR 

 OLD PUG,' and subscribed Vox Humanitatis, will, we have no doubt, interest all 

 those who are endowed with genuine sensibility, and we trust, prove instructive to 

 others, who have yet that noble qualification to acquire' A young lady of four- 

 teen, of a feeling heart, and who, young as she is, spares no trouble in the cause of 

 mercy, whether to fellow-creatures or brutes, caused to be brought home a deserted 

 dog, the history of which is as follows. A woman was followed into a shop, by an 

 ancient pug-dog of the most pitiable appearance. She said it had lived with her 

 six and twenty years, and was an old dog when it first came into her possession. 

 Its back and legs had been broken, and it had lost one eye, yet survived, heart- 

 whole ! It had ever been most faithful and affectionate to its mistress, and when- 

 ever she was sick, would sit constantly upon her bed, watching her, and even 

 refusing its food. She observed, it had long been afflicted with an asthma, which 

 appeared but too plainly from the laboured manner in which it drew breath, and 

 by its truly symptomatic cough. It had, beside, obviously caught a recent cold. 

 The mistress of this distressed object, was about to bestow upon it, the final reward 

 of its long and fond attachment. She observed, with the most perfect coolness, that 

 she must get rid of the old dog ; and her proposed method was to take it into 

 the streets, lose, and desert it ! It was evening, frosty, and piercing cold, and the 

 poor animal had for so many years been accustomed to a warm room and a bed. 

 But the head of this unthinking, and callous-hearted wretch, could entertain but 

 one idea on the subject, that of ridding herself of a burden, without reflecting for 

 a moment upon the miseries, to which she was about to expose an innocent and 

 affectionate animal to the rigours of cold, without shelter, to buffets, blows, 

 wounds, yearnings for its lost home, lingering death by famine ! This woman of 

 the world, totally overlooked the fellow animal feelings of the brute, and the 

 horrible analogies of the present day, of devoted human creatures, who have 

 perished for want in the highways and the streets. She must have been well ap- 

 prized of the nature of that end, which she was preparing for her late humble and 

 faithful friend and companion as, how could she expect a stranger would be 

 burdened with such an inmate, which she, its natural protector, had cast out ? It 

 was remarked to her, by a woman of sense and humanity, that she ought, in 

 common justice, and propriety, to give a man a small sum, to put an end at once, 

 to the poor creature's miseries but no, it was too much trouble ! And here it is 

 proper to repeat a condemnation of that general, unfeeling foolery, under the guise 

 of sensibility, which induces an aversion to taking away the lives of deserted, or 

 aged and diseased dogs and cats, in the same people, who feast without reluctance 

 or remorse, upon the flesh of the finest, happiest, and healthiest animals daily 

 slaughtered for the purpose ! an aversion which must, beyond all question, be 



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