shame, humor, etc., may all in turn be similarly proved to be shared by the dog world; but it is a singular fact that so many of the anecdotes put forward to illustrate the virtues of this animal should, if read with a little irreverence towards the dogs, lend themselves to conflicting if not opposite conclusions.
Indeed, I look upon the woolly little white dog that is so common as a pet in England as absolute criminal. You can see what a timid creature it is by the way it jumps when any cabman shouts, and yet its foolishness and greediness have got as many men into jail as a street riot would have done. You have only to look at it to see what an easy dog it is to steal. In fact, it was made to be stolen, and it faithfully fulfils its destiny. One man — the father of a young family, too — has been in prison twice for stealing that same dog. It is true that, on the other hand, he has sold it at a splendid profit on five other occasions, and has pocketed a handsome reward for “finding” it several times besides, but he nevertheless owes several weeks’ incarceration to that same little dog’s infamously criminal habit of looking so stealable. He can no more keep his hands off the animal than needles can help going to the nearest load-stone. It is of no use his trying to look the other way, or repeating the Lord’s Prayer, or thrusting his hands right down to the bottom of his breeches’ pockets, for as surely as ever that little dog comes by, Jerry will have to steal it. It is chiefly the dog’s fault. It never follows its master or mistress for the time being like a steady dog of business, but trots flickeringly about the pavement, as if it was going nowhere in particular with nobody It makes excursions up alleys on its own account, and comes running back in such a hurry that it
