Modern Cynolatry. 
[December, 
762 
would ascribe to the “ poor man’s dog ” any elevating or 
humanising influence visit those towns and villages where 
the iron and coal trades flourish, and makegood use of their 
eyes. Let them take note of the sullen, low-browed ruffians 
who lounge at the tavern corners or slink along the lanes, 
each duly attended by his lurcher, his terrier, or his ‘‘snap.” 
Or, better still, let them on some public holiday, or even on 
a fine Sunday morning, go out to some open plot of ground 
in the suburbs. To give a single example, far from the worst 
of its kind, let our investigators go to Leeds on a Whit 
Monday, and take a stroll along the Knostrop Road, past the 
sewage works, and note the crowd there collected for the 
elevating sport of dog-racing, or perhaps of rabbit-worrying. 
If they do this they will form a fairly accurate notion of dog- 
keeping in humble life and of its tendencies. Yet Leeds is 
correct and refined in the manners and conduCt of its people 
in comparison with some towns which might be easily named. 
We do not find the “poor man’s dog” in the “home of 
taste,” in the clean, trim cottage with flowers in the window- 
sill and books on the table. No, his place is amidst rags and 
squalor and scenes of brutality and drunkenness. The 
“ pet” for the poor man’s children, as “ Ouida ” terms the 
dog, is pampered at their expense. The dog-owner is the 
wife-beater and the drunkard. As a specimen of the human- 
ising effects of dog-keeping we may takes the following gem, 
which every one who knows the manufacturing districts will 
admit is typical rather than exceptional : — 
“ To-day, at Willenhall Police Court, a locksmith, named 
John Henry Williams, was convicted of an aggravated assault 
on his wife. He had kept a racing dog, which slept in bed 
with him, and was fed off joints of beef, while his wife and 
family were scantily fed. For complaining of this treatment 
he beat and kicked her, breaking one or two of her ribs. He 
was sent to gaol for two months.” 
The parish-surgeon for the district of Brampton, near 
Chesterfield, lately reported at the meeting of guardians that 
many persons receiving out-door relief deprived their families 
of food that they might pamper dogs. It must not be sup- 
posed that these creatures are fed upon the scraps and leav- 
ings from the family table. The very reverse is often much 
nearer the truth. I have not merely heard of, but have 
personally observed cases where racing dogs are feasted upon 
prime cuts of meat, and where young children are robbed of 
their allowance of milk that it may be given to the “ bull- 
pup.” The “ poor man’s dog,” which we are asked not to 
tax, is the cause and the symbol of suffering and privation 
