DOGS IN LONDON 251 
half a century later on the same subject, and as 
Gould’s brilliant essay on the habits of British ants 
—which, by the way, has never been reprinted— 
and as Gilbert White’s classic, which came later in 
the eighteenth century. 
That the bond uniting man and dog in all 
instances when the poor brute was obliged to fend - 
for himself in the inhospitable streets of London 
was an exceedingly frail one was plainly seen when 
the muzzling order of 1897 was made. An extra- 
ordinary number of apparently ownerless dogs, 
unmuzzled and collarless, were found roaming 
about the streets and taken by hundreds every 
week to the lethal chamber. In thirty months the 
dog population of the metropolis had decreased by 
about one hundred thousand. The mongrels and 
dogs of the “rascall sort” had all but vanished, 
and this was how the improvement in the character 
of the dog population mentioned before came about 
immediately. But a far more important change 
had been going on at the same time—the change 
in the temper of our dogs; and it may here be 
well to remark that this change in disposition was 
not the result of the weeding-out process I have 
described. The better breeds are not more amiable 
than the curs of low degree. The man who has 
made a friend and companion of the cur will tell 
you that he is as nice-tempered, affectionate, 
faithful, and intelligent as the nobler kinds, the 
dogs of “notable shape.” 
Let us now go back to the muzzling time of 
