Dogs.—'* T, S. R." writes ;—'' It is with regret 

 that I ask you to reopen the correspondence on the sub- 

 ject of the ' Dogs' Home,' but absence abroad has pre- 

 vented my seeing until now the manager's reply to my 

 letter of June 23. That reply, which is devoted exclusively 

 to one remark of mine, is presumably the result of a con- 

 fusion made by the manager between my case and that of 

 some other sufferer, since no such conversation as that 

 quoted therein took place between us, nor was his refusal 

 to accept a written description of the dog prefaced by an 

 inquiry as to its distinguishing marks. It also happens 

 that the dog in question is not ' golden tan,' but does 

 possess peculiarities which distinguish him from others of 

 his class, and had I not been prepared to give a much 

 more definite and less silly description than that ascribed 

 ' to me by the manager I should not have thought of tender- \' 

 ; ing it as a means of identification. It would, I think, be 

 ' a more satisfactory policy, and one more in keeping with 

 the gwasi-official position of the * Home,' were some 

 attempt made to render active assistance to those who 

 have made several but unsuccessful visits to the institu- 

 tion in search of their lost property, and were the 

 manager, instead of assumin.^ that all descriptions are 

 necessarily worthless, to accept even an insufficient one, 

 and try to make it more complete by asking such ques- 

 tions as his experience and knowledge of dogs miglif; 

 suggest. His calculation of the amount of correspondence 

 this practice would entail upon the staff is clearly 

 erroneous, as ib is based on the hypothesis that no visitor 

 recovers his dog, and that no dog is possessed of dis- 

 tinguishing marks. The reason for the line of passive 

 indifference at present adopted towards those searching for 

 their lost property is not difficult to find, as the sale of 

 valuable animals to strangers gives less trouble and a 

 surer profit than the restoration to their owners, while 

 the skins of the worthless probably produce enough to 

 cover the expense of their brief sojourn at the ' Home.' 

 It has not been my wish unduly to decry the ' Home,' but 

 to point out that the indiscriminate use of the power 

 possessed by that institution of giving with the dogs it 

 sells an indisputable title, irrespective of all antecedent 

 circumstances, does work great injustice and may be pat 

 to very evil uses by the professional thief, and also to 

 warn those who lose favourite or valuable dogs and fail 

 to recover them within the first few days that they need 

 not look for active assistance from, the ' Home,' but must 

 be prepared to make a bi-weekly pilgrimage to Battersea 

 during certain prescribed hours of the day if they wish to 

 prevent their property being destroyed or sold for a tenth 

 of its value, and themselves debarred from all right to 

 recovery.'* 





