The means by which animals contrive to communicate their ideas to each other is a phenomenon which has never been satisfactorily explained. The two following instances of it are very curious. A gentleman who was in the habit of occasionally visiting London from a distant county performed the journey on horseback, accompanied by a favourite little terrier dog, which he left at an inn at some distance from London till his return. On one occasion on calling for his dog the landlady told him that it was lost; it had had a quarrel with the great house dog, and had been so worried and bit that it was thought he would never recover, but at the end of a few days he crawled out of the yard, and no one saw him for almost a week, when he returned with another dog bigger than his enemy, on whom they both fell and nearly destroyed him. This dog had actually travelled to its own home at Whitmore in Staffordshire, had coaxed away the great dog in question, which followed him to St. Alban's to assist in resenting the injury of his friend. The following story is related of a little spaniel which had been found lame by a surgeon at Leeds. He carried the poor animal home, bandaged up his leg, and after two or three days turned him out. The dog returned to the surgeon's house every morning till his leg was perfectly well. At the end of several months, the spaniel again presented himself in company with another dog, which had also been lamed; and he intimated, as well as piteous and intelligent looks could intimate, that he desired the same assistance to be rendered to his friend as had been bestowed upon himself. The combination of ideas in this case, growing out of the recollection of his own injury, and referring that to the cure which had been performed; the compassion he had for his friend to whom he communicated the occurrence, and induced to seek relief under his guidance, together with the appeal to the humane surgeon, is as extraordinary a piece of sagacity as can be found in all the annals of animals.
STRANGE CUSTOM ABOUT NAMES.
The following anecdote forcibly illustrates the absurd custom which prevailed many years ago in America, of giving children names, made up of Scripture sentences. We record the anecdote as being descriptive of a curious local custom. About the beginning of the present century a New England sea captain having some business at a public office, which required him to sign his name, was rather tedious in performing the operation, which did not escape the observation of the officer, who was a little impatient at the delay, and curious withal to see what sort of a name it could be that required so long a time to spread it upon paper. Perhaps the captain had a long string of titles to grace it, such as honorable, esquire, colonel of militia, selectman of the town of ——, &c., which he chose to make an ostentatious parade of; or perhaps it was his whim to subscribe the place of his nativity and that of his residence, together with his age, height, and complexion. He was mistaken; for the captain had subscribed nothing but simply his name, which, when he had done, the officer, after some trouble in decyphering, found to read thus:—Through-Much-Tribulation-We-Enter-Into-the-Kingdom-of-Heaven Clapp. "Will you please to tell me, Captain Clapp," said he, with as demure a face as his violent inclination to indulge in a hearty laugh would allow him to put on, "what might your mother have called you in your infancy, to save herself the trouble of repeating a sermon whenever she had occasion to name her darling?" "Why, sir," replied Captain Clapp, with laughable simplicity, "when I was little they used to call me Tribby, for shortness."
DRESS IN LONDON DURING THE LAST CENTURY.
The seven illustrations which accompany this article represent the progress of dress in London from 1690 to 1779. They speak for themselves, and tell their own tale far better than any description in words could tell it for them. The scale in society to which the persons depicted in the engravings belong, is what may be called the upper middle class, and we thus obtain a more correct idea of the general style of dress, than we should have done had we confined our observations solely to the higher ranks.
DRESS 1690-1715.
