THE DOG TRIBE. 205 



tribe of dog is serviceable to man. But how, one would ask, can 

 the lap-dog be serviceable ? a little snappish, snarling, ricketty 

 thing, not bold enough to attack even a Hanoverian rat. In truth, 

 I feel shy in alluding to the occasional services of this pampered 

 favourite. One really wonders how our elegant ladies, with robes 

 of Tyrean dye and gloves as white as drifted snow, should ever 

 fancy such apparently unuseful little brutes as these, and take them 

 in their arms with fond caresses. Still, let me do them justice 

 they really have their uses. 



In some years we have a heavier crop of household fleas than in 

 others ; and when this occurs, these puny tormentors are said to 

 prefer the skin of the lap-dog to that of the lady. Strange taste ! not 

 easily to be accounted for. Lap-dogs are well known to be vigilant 

 watchers, both in the night and during the day, and really their 

 services are valuable in these times of diurnal robbery, when mem- 

 bers of what is called the swell-mob will walk coolly into a house 

 and carry off all the silver used at breakfast. A lap-dog seems to 

 be ever .on the watch, although its eyes be closed apparently by 

 sleep. It starts and gives mouth at the slightest noise,, and is thus 

 the means of frustrating many an attempt at robbery. Lap-dogs 

 are better in the house than out of it, for when they are allowed to 

 run loose, they sometimes become very nasty by having rubbed 

 themselves in the first piece of carrion in their way. Again, all dogs 

 have a natural and disagreeable scent coming from them, quite 

 different from that of all known animals. Soap and brushes may 

 subdue it for the moment, but it will return when these are discon- 

 tinued. If you were blindfolded, and one hundred different animals 

 were presented to your olfactory regions, with ten dogs amongst 

 them, you would not fail to recognise the ten dogs as soon as they 

 were placed under your nose. 



Not long ago our dogs were used to draw the poor man's vehicle ; 

 but this privilege seems lately to have been withdrawn by an order 

 from the magistrates on the score of cruelty, although in every 

 surrounding country we observe dogs dragging little carts; and I 

 myself can testify that I have never seen a lame dog in harness. 

 France and Belgium are famous for the breed of dogs to be used as 

 horses. If the modern Solons, who have deprived the poor man of 



