296 OTHER BEASTS OF BURDEN 
— mere narrow shelves like all dog-carts, whether on 
wheels or sledges — were going at ten miles an hour. 
There may be cruelty, just as in the use of any other 
creature. But men are always hardest on a sluggish 
animal. One donkey suffers more than twenty dogs. 
The legislation which stopped their use in England 
was nominally humanitarian. But it has often been 
asserted, that it was chiefly due to the objection which 
persons who drove horses entertained for dog-carts, 
and to the country gentleman’s dislike of dogs as 
enemies to game. We should be sorry to see dogs 
replace ponies in common use. But it should not 
be illegal to employ them. We have seen a little 
Pomeranian helping to pull its invalid master’s chair, 
and evidently proud of its work. In this case, it 
would have been difficult for the policeman to put the 
law in force. In snow-time we have harnessed a 
setter and a retriever to a toboggan-sledge, and they 
enjoyed the fun quite as much as their master,— 
indeed, they upset us at the first corner. 
The English reliance on horses, big and little, is 
almost justified by the wonderful adaptation for 
manifold uses which careful breeding has produced. 
The work of the dog must, in civilized countries, be 
limited to petty draught on well-made roads and in 
towns. In the Arctic circle he is a necessity to man 
as a beast of burden. When the Greenland dogs die, 
the Greenlander must become extinct. It is impossible 
for him to drag home the seals, sharks, white whales, 
and narwhals, which he shoots on the ice, without his 
