594 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
THE HOME EOR LOST DOGS. 
In one of the leading periodicals we have met with the 
following from the pen of Mr. W. Kidd, whose name is well 
known in connexion with natural history and love of 
animals: 
It says little for our character as a te civilised” people, that 
there should exist among us a “ Royal Society for the Pre¬ 
vention of Cruelty to Animals,” and that the said society, 
through its active officers and numerous friends, should be 
unceasingly at work in all parts of the country. Our magis¬ 
trates, too—how many acts of savage cruelty they have to 
deal with, almost daily. It is a sad proof of the perversion of' 
God’s gifts to man—this want of common feeling; but I 
would fain hope that much of it results from a want of 
thought. Of one thing there can be no doubt: too many of 
our children are systematically educated in the common belief 
that the (so called) lower world of animals were created solely 
for the use and pleasure of man, and that their happiness is 
a matter of no moment. 
Young people should be induced to read or to enter into 
the spirit of those sweet lines of Cowper : 
“ That heart is hard in nature, and unfit 
Eor human fellowship, as being void 
Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike 
To love and friendship both, which is not pleased 
With sight of animals enjoying life, 
Nor feel their happiness augment his own.” 
If parents were to teach their children, at an early age, to 
love such sentiments as these, we should not find so many 
birds robbed of their eggs and their young, flies and other 
insects deprived of their wings, and every little creature that 
has life considered to be an object of fair sport. But I am 
not going to deliver a general lecture on humanity to animals ; 
my object is merely to direct attention to a special mode of 
kindly action in their behalf. 
It cannot have escaped observation that large numbers or 
dogs of every conceivable variety and pattern are wandering 
all over London from day to day. People must have noticed, 
too, that nearly all of them have deflected tails, telling too 
plainly of their dejected spirit. These poor wanderers are, 
for the most part, homeless, and in a state of semi-starvation. 
