144 KENNEL SECRETS. 



petitors and of all ages, and that the dangers threatened 

 are beyond prevention. 



This notion owes its greatest force to its antiquity, and 

 like the cobwebs that obscure so many healthful truths 

 has stoutly resisted the broom of intelligence and experi- 

 ence. There are many diseases peculiar to the human 

 family that find their most favorable conditions where 

 children congregate, nevertheless schools exist and must 

 continue to do so until the end of time. Churches might 

 without impropriety be called "head centres" of disease, 

 for in them, also, the conditions are quite favorable for its 

 wide dissemination, yet the non-going never rely upon 

 this fact for an excuse. 



And so with dog shows. Were a dog suffering from a 

 highly infectious disease admitted to one of them he could 

 scarcely fail to infect some of his competitors. But dogs 

 are not subject to nearly as many diseases of this class as 

 mankind ; moreover, at the present time so much is known 

 as to causation, the mediums of conveyance and methods 

 of prevention, it is possible to hedge around these shows 

 safeguards quite as efficient as those which man employs 

 against his own peculiar infectious diseases. 



Children in schools and people in church are in some 

 danger — slight though it be in many instances — of diph- 

 theria, scarlet fever, measles, whooping-cough, itch, ring- 

 worm, and a number of other diseases of like character, 

 whereas scarcely more than two such diseases threaten 

 dogs at shows ; and these are distemper and sarcoptic 

 mange. That the former has found many victims at 

 these gatherings is a deplorable fact which no attempt 

 will be made to disguise, but there was a time when 

 small-pox yearly destroyed thousands upon thousands of 

 the human family, yet in these days, in civilized countries, 

 death from it is of extremely rare occurrence ; and if the 



