180 The Carnivora. 
by him in a manner to insure complete success), rather than 
entrust the duty to a stranger, with the risk of partial failure; 
but unless he can implicitly trust his nerve, he should not 
attempt it. 
Happily for the large number of dogs which must be annually: 
destroyed at the Home, a ‘‘lethal chamber” has been provided 
by Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S., in which they will fall quietly 
into their last sleep, absolutely without pain, or even the 
apprehension of death. This chamber is filled with a mixture 
of carbonic oxide and carbonic acid gases. The animals are 
placed in cages, and wheeled into it on a truck, to the number, 
if required, of fifty at a time, and the inhalation of the 
gases is immediately accompanied by loss of sensation and 
rapid death. 
Should any evidence be required of the total and painless 
deprivation of life by this method, I am able to supply it 
from a fortunate personal experience. Some years ago, I 
entered a room in which a charcoal fire stove had been burn- 
ing three or four hours, but I believed it to be sufficiently 
ventilated. After the lapse of some little time, I experienced 
a rather agreeable sensation of drowsiness and fatigue, but 
entirely without apprehension of danger, or even thought of 
the charcoal fire, the insidious narcotic carbonic oxide gas 
from which was really depriving me of consciousness. Think- 
ing it merely an intimation to retire to rest, 1 rose from the — 
light low chair on which I had been sitting; at that moment, 
total oblivion must have overtaken me, the mind recorded 
nothing whatever subsequently, but the event showed that I 
had fallen back and broken the chair, and lay on the floor 
with my head immersed in the fatal gas. An attendant 
coming in to look at the fire, dragged me into the open air, 
where I soon recovered, and, with the exception of a bruise 
or two, was nothing the worse for having passed into a con- 
dition of absolute death, so far as regarded consciousness; 
while, had this been prolonged for a few minutes, my peaceful 
sleep would have known no awakening. 
