646 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
the dogs ? A ban has been converted into a blessing; an 
abode of wrath into a delectable retreat. 
Moreover, the kindness that is here shown, is of the 
purest, untainted by any expectation of reward, or even of 
any audible expression of thanks. Time and money and skill 
have been, and are to be, here expended, from the most un¬ 
alloyed, the sublimated, motives of gentleness and tender 
mercy. There is no hope for us of any good round legacy in 
the wills of any of our patients ; their good will here and now 
are our only guerdon. Neither can we expect that our som¬ 
bre labors will be entwined by any mirth from our convales¬ 
cents ; there will be no sound of laughter, not even the merry 
tale of a wag ; our highest hopes are bounded by the wag of 
a tail. And we have other limitations. If we here foster the 
nine muses they must perforce be canine; moreover we must 
blink the temperance question altogether, and at our thres¬ 
hold prohibtion must halt its domineering foot. It cannot be 
helped. It is inevitable. Wherever there are dogs there must 
be lickers—and there will be whines, and yet I’ll warrant you 
we’ll never have a case of inebriation—but if we should, we’ll 
not throw physic to the dogs; we’ll give it to them gently 
with a spoon. 
In this great world of ours there is an infinite tangle of 
every kind of disposition among men, and doubtless in your 
appeal for funds you have been, and still will be, met with 
the harsh objection that, here, money was diverted from its 
appropriate, nay its legitimate channels, which are the alle¬ 
viation of human woe. This criticism, with its show of justice, 
should not dishearten us. There are very many of us to 
whom the mute appeal of the suffering animal speaks with as 
much eloquence as the audible cry of human distress, and we 
must remember how close are the ties of friendship, of love, 
I had almost said of kinship, which bind, and will bind many 
of us to the suffering patients within our walls. And surely 
surely within the shadow of that munificent municipal institu¬ 
tion where the pain of the humblest citizen is assuaged, our 
modest walls may rise, and from that mighty, lavish loaf, these 
dogs of ours may eat some crumbs which fall from their mas- 
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