208 
ON THE DOG-CART BILL. 
ment of the dog has been accompanied by such shameful and 
wanton cruelty that the magistracy, somewhat hastily confound- 
ing the use of a thing with its legitimate purpose, has already for- 
bidden the appearance of the dog-cart in the metropolitan dis- 
tricts, and is apparently taking measures to extirpate a great pro- 
portion of the canine race, I can only say that they are doing that 
which neither justice nor humanity will sanction. 
It is the ardent wish of every good heart that a kindlier and 
better feeling may gradually prevail, and that this animal, humane- 
ly treated, may return to the discharge of the services of which 
Nature has rendered him capable, for which he was expressly 
designed, and which he is never happier than when discharging 
to the best of his power. 
An able writer in “ The Times' places our subject in a very 
proper point of view : — 
“ Is there , ” asks he, “ any thing in the constitution, or dis- 
eases, or propensities of the English dog, as compared with those 
of other nations, which makes that an act of cruelty or danger in 
the one which is not so in the other ? 
‘‘If neither the constitution of the dog nor our climate causes or 
presents any obstacle, what is there, on the score of humanity or 
morality either, to be urged against making a dog work for his 
living as well as does a horse, an ass, an ox, or a human being? 
“But are there no advantages to be gained by using dogs as 
beasts of draught? 
“Why may they not be employed in the coal-pits to draw the 
corves along the narrow passages, instead of the disgusting beasts 
of draught into which human beings of both sexes are said to be 
degraded in some part3 of England ? Why might not a train of 
dogs instead of horses or mules, and at a much cheaper rate, draw 
a fly-boat along a canal ? 
“ I mention these as two cases that occur to me at the moment. 
I have no doubt that twenty other employments would be found 
if one were to take twenty minutes to think about it. 
“Well, then, under such a system, every cottager and villager 
might profitably keep one or two of these faithful and vigilant 
guardians in his cottage or in his farm-yard ; we should then hear 
of far fewer midnight attacks — far fewer incendiary atrocities. 
Who would dare to invade the slumber of the cottager, or to 
