ON THE DOG-CART BILL. 207 
which he was engaged ? Why are the greater part of his species 
to be consigned to destruction ? 
What would become of the inhabitants of the Northern regions 
if the dog was not harnessed to the sledge, and the Laplander, and 
the Greenlander, and he of Kamtschatka, drawn, and occasionally 
at the rate of nearly an hundred miles a-day, over the snowy 
wastes? 
Is he capable of this? He performs it, and after, perhaps, a 
scanty meal, he sleeps soundly, until, on the following morning, 
he is roused to renewed labour. These dogs, however, had been 
travelling over a glazed surface, where comparatively little 
muscular exertion was required. 
It was stated in the House of Commons, that there were cases 
of dogs being driven in Sussex as many as fifty miles a-day. I 
do not doubt it. There are miscreants capable of any kind 
of atrocity. I would have such fellows sought out, and exposed 
to the full penalty of the law. But there is no reason that, be- 
cause some are shamefully used, all should be destroyed. This 
would be a species of false reasoning that no one could defend. 
I am told that it is the opinion of Professor Sewell, that * e the 
cruelties to which dogs used in trucks and carts are often sub- 
jected bring on fever, and that fever terminates in hydrophobia.” 
I hesitate not to say that this is perfectly erroneous. 1 chal- 
lenge that gentleman to the proof. These are diseases which, in 
many cases, have not the slightest resemblance to each other, 
and the one never terminates in the other*. 
Why, then, is the poor dog to be condemned to destruction ? 
In Newfoundland the timber, one of the most important articles 
of commerce there, is drawn to the water side by the docile but 
ill-used dog. We need only to cross the British Channel to see 
how useful and, generally speaking, how happy a beast of 
draught the dog can be. 
If in our own country, and to its deep disgrace, the employ- 
* Professor Sewell should have recollected that, at the Veterinary School 
at Alfort, three dogs were selected as the subjects of some very cruel but 
decisive experiments with regard to rabies. It was during the heat of sum- 
mer, and they were all chained in the full blaze of the sun. To one salted 
meat alone was given — to the second, water only — and to the third, neither 
food nor drink. They all died ; but not one of them exhibited the slightest 
symptom of rabies. 
