I have been asked to reproduce a humourous "skit," which appeared in "The Daily Mail" 9th of July, 1897, from the pen of a well-known contributor to that paper. It was headed "A Ladies' Dog Show," and ran as follows: "Seven gentle ladies were yesterday to be observed walking gravely in a circle in Regents Park. They each led a Black Pug by a chain. They walked round and round a ruddy old gentleman with keen blue eyes, a shepherd's smock, and a slouched straw hat. Three partridge feathers stuck out jauntily from the side of the hat. The ladies cast appealing looks at the shepherd, who stared hard at the insignificant little wretches of dogs, one of whom barked all the while, but he did not heed it. The march became quicker; the ladies looked more appealing than ever. A crowd gathered around and observed the strange proceedings with wonder. What was it? they asked. A new system of Pantheistic worship? or a side show from a menagerie? The shepherd put up his hand and the ladies stopped, dead. He threw down his glittering pencil to attract the notice of one of the glossy little Pugs. The Pug snapped. He caught it by the head, and stared hard in its ridiculous little face. The dog chastened by the keen blue eyes, ceased to yelp. The proud proprietor at the other end of the chain, looked as anxious as a criminal in the dock. The other ladies made the most of this moment of respite. They patted their dogs and kissed them, and told them to be good little duckies of doggies, and mamma would be so pleased! One tempted her charge with a biscuit, another with half a crown. The coin was held up above the dog's nose. Doggie jumped, and scrambled and yelped just like any of its human acquaintances. The shepherd looked at each dog in turn, and wrote something in a book, and then seven ladies and seven dogs left the ring. One lady looked pleased, another fairly satisfied and the rest as if somebody had blundered. The Pugs were all indifferent. But the secret was out, there were no mysterious rites of an Esoteric creed. It was a dog show, that of the 'Ladies' Kennel Association.' They have survived their internecine troubles, and have more members than they had before that dramatic split at the Holborn restaurant and boast of more entries at this show than ever they had before. Between seven hundred and eight hundred dogs are staged. At a Ladies' Show it is to be expected that some of the conventionalities will be overthrown. There are, for instance, no men prowling about, with cloth caps, buckskin leggings, and wisps of straw, telling you that their Terrier killed fifty rats in thirty seconds or that 'the Brindled Bull was own sister to the best dawg that was ever bred.' The exhibitors are ladies, elegantly dressed, who sit and listen to the band with their Pugs and Spaniels, on their knees. It is the same with the dogs, there are no sporting dogs, to speak of, though the number is increasing year by year and not half a score of Bull Dogs. Such as there are, a little aristocracy of bone and jowl lie at rest in a distant corner of the tent not deigning to notice the Poodles around. Near them are a few Airedale Terriers. One of them, which would be in its element in a rattling street fight, stretched to the top of its pen, looked over at the 'curled darlings' on the other side, deliberately yawned and turned over again to sleep. There is a whole tent full of Toy Spaniels and other exquisites in upholstered pens. They have ribbons round their necks, and bells and go about two to the pound. The Poodles are curled and shaven and shorn, and decked out with top-knots of coloured ribbons. One which lay asleep was described as a 'Rag and a Bone, and a Hank of Worsted,' Two Poodle puppies, not yet shorn, looked refreshingly unkempt by the side of these ultra-respectable Uncles and Aunts. A litter of Dachshunds resembled lion cubs asleep. The foreign class which is both strong and varied, provided an amusing contrast. In one pen was a huge shaggy 'Balu,' in the next a shivering little 'Mousie Chihuahua,' whatever that may be! 'Balu' could have taken 'Mousie' among his hors d'œuvres before dinner. Chows with big heads and wee twinkling eyes. Borzois trying to twist their legs into geometrical figures; an Esquimo asleep; a vicious Dingo in a cage. St. Bernards which made the tent quiver, when they barked and Bloodhounds sleeping serenely, there being no murderers about, these were the Giants of the show. If not as numerous, certainly they were a more weighty section than the Toy Spaniels. The Princess of Wales was among the exhibitors. If anyone wants to see a good collection of 'Japs' and 'Poms' and 'Skyes' and 'Dachs' and 'Charlies,' so the ladies tenderly call them, at Regents Park, he will find them."
The following related by the late Hon. Grantley Berkeley, strongly illustrative of the sagacity and thinking powers of dogs, may be interesting to some of my readers: "I had a dog called 'Wolf,' at Teffont Mane House, in Wiltshire, and when I fed my tame pheasants and partridges I always took him with me. This dog had seen my caution when I approached the birds and always obeyed my signal to lie down by the gun till I had done feeding them. When the game began to get to an age to stray, a considerable number used to come upon the lawn in front of the windows.
"One afternoon the lawn being, to all appearances, clear of birds, I sent Wolf to hunt a rabbit out of a circular flower bed, for me to shoot. The dog obeyed the sign, but no sooner had he entered the laurels, than he made a sort of snap with his jaws, a thing he always did when he was not pleased, and returned to my heels with rather a sheepish look. The sign to hunt having been repeated the same thing occurred and on his returning to me with a peculiar expression in his face, I went to the laurels to ascertain what hindered his obedience.
"To my great pleasure I found about a dozen young pheasants, into whose presence he was fearful of intruding, so I lay down on the lawn close to the pheasants, and letting him see how pleased I was, caressed him for full five minutes, and then when I retired, did so in a most marked and stealthy manner, which he, close at my heels, immediately adopted. Now suppose some thoughtless or inconsiderate master with such a dog as this had upon his refusal to hunt, beaten or kicked him for disobedience, which would really have deserved the punishment, the sensible dog, or the silly man?
"On taking up my residence at Beacon Lodge, and, for years after, Wolf was still in or out of the house, my constant companion and closely observant of all I did or desired. When first the wild white rabbits began to appear at Beacon, I never shot them, but very frequently killed the brown ones by their side. In hunting any outlying place, if by chance there was a white rabbit, I used to stop Wolf from hunting it up to my gun, and by observation the dog convinced himself that a rabbit so coloured was on no account to be molested. When the whites had become more common, one evening I went out to kill some rabbits for the table, or to give away, and seeing a very fine young white one, I shot it. The rabbit lay dead on the contrary side of a fence, and Wolf had not seen it killed, but at a sign from me, flew over to pick up whatever might be there. The rabbit lay kicking with its hinder legs, and Wolf seeing the motion in the grass, dashed up, but instantly made the snap with his jaws, dropped his stern and came back with a sheepish look, as if to tell me I had done wrong. I praised and made much of him, and taking him with me up to the rabbit encouraged him to pick it up and to give it to me, and ever after he would pick up any coloured rabbit that might be killed.
"Wolf's dinner hour was at my dessert time, the last thing the retiring servants had to do was to place his plate upon the hearthrug. Occasionally they neglected to do this, and then he had seen me ring the bell, to rectify the omission. For some years before his death, when his dinner was due, and had not been brought in, after looking at me with a wistful expression of countenance, he would go up and kiss the bell handle, and then come to me, look up in my face, and push my arm with his nose. Of course, up came his dinner, with a ring from the bell, denoting double quick time."
More than forty years since, there was a London street dog which took a great fancy to following the fire engines. Whenever there was a fire there would the dog be seen running in and out among the throng apparently making himself as busy as possible. This strange conduct of the animal, of course, attracted the attention of the firemen, and after a time they used to feed and take notice of him, occasionally giving him a ride on the engine. At last, so well was the dog known that he came to be called the Fireman's Dog. He owned no master, but stopped a day or two with any of the firemen he took a fancy to. He was always on the alert, directly the fire alarm was given, and used frequently to run by the side of the horses for miles together. At last the dog on one of the journeys, was run over and killed, when the firemen had his body stuffed and set up in a glass case in the principal office of the Metropolitan fire brigade, Watling street, London. There it remained for some years, and numbers of people called to see him in his glass case.
In 1853 the Superintendent of the Fire Station, Chandos street, Covent Garden, was for some neglect of duty degraded to the rank of an ordinary fireman. This disgrace so preyed on the poor fellow's mind, that one winter's night he threw himself over Waterloo Bridge and was drowned. He left a widow and children totally unprovided for, and in order to procure a sum for their relief, the glass case containing the stuffed figure of the Fireman's Dog was disposed of by way of lottery. A raffle took place at a tavern in Chandos street, when upwards of a hundred pounds was realised. The dog was won by the tavern-keeper, and in his parlour it may still be seen. Thus you see that long after death the dog has been found useful to his masters in time of need.
The following account of a dog, for many years known as "The Brighton Coach Dog," is cut from an old newspaper of the time. "For a long period a dog invariably accompanied the only coach which in 1851 ran between London and Brighton. On the 24th June, in that year, he was placed on the back of the coach to prevent his barking at the horses, when he jumped off at Henfield and fell between the wheels, one of which, passing over his back, killed him. The animal belonged to an ostler at the Newcastle Place stables, Edgeware Road, London; he went to the yard when a puppy and the man took care of him.
"Being brought up amongst horses, he was never happy unless with them at home, or travelling about. His chief delight was to travel up and down with the Brighton coach. He had been known to travel, during the last spring of his life, for eight successive days to and from Brighton, Sundays intervening.