CH. XXXIII. DOG-EATING REPROBATED. 209 



wretched feeling of superstition, caused the dog to 

 be killed. May the mourners over her own grave 

 be better treated ! The source from which I re- 

 ceived this anecdote leaves no doubt upon my mind 

 as to its truth. I must own, indeed, that I am 

 greatly inclined to believe all stories which ex- 

 emplify the reasoning powers or the fidelity of dogs. 

 However marvellous they may be, my own experi- 

 ence leads me to think that, although they may not 

 he probable, Sit least they are possible. 



The dog is peculiarly the friend and companion 

 of man. In every country this is the case, and it 

 has been so in every age. There is one use, how- 

 ever, to which they are put, the propriety of which 

 I cannot admit, namely, that of being eaten. Being 

 decidedly a carnivorous animal, the dog can never 

 have been intended for our food ; and those nations 

 who eat dog's flesh, as the Chinese and certain of 

 the American Indian tribes, appear to me to be 

 guilty of a sort of cannibalism almost as bad as if 

 they ate each other. Yet we read accounts of their 

 being occasionally eaten in those countries by our 

 own countrymen, and actually relished. Hunger, 

 we all know, is a good sauce ; and perhaps a 

 young puppy may not be bad, though in all pro- 

 bability those travellers would have found an 

 infant still more relishing. I confess that I have 



