CANINE SAGACITY IN EXCELSIS.
Dear Sir,—I can vouch for the absolute accuracy of the following remarkable instance of canine sense and kindly feeling. My wife has a little pet dog, with a singular penchant for bones, which he is apt to litter about in inconvenient places.
The other morning my wife discovered, under her pillow, a half-gnawed bone, evidently placed there by Tim (the dog), who is accustomed to sleep at the foot of our bed. Now this is where the extraordinary intelligence comes in. Our doctor, on the previous day, had told my wife that she must take nourishment at frequent intervals, even, if necessary, in the middle of the night; and, when the doctor said this, Tim was present! The devoted animal evidently thought this an excellent opportunity for serving his beloved mistress; and consequently he sacrificed his best and most cherished bone, that she might have something to eat during the long night watches. What altruism is displayed by this selection of a hiding-place, and how it puts us poor humans to the blush!
It certainly was not the dog's fault if a partially-gnawed bone was not precisely the sort of delicacy likely to tempt my wife's capricious appetite. A dog cannot be expected to know everything! All honour to this noble-minded quadruped! "La plus noble conquéte que l'homme ait jamais faite," says Buffon, "c'est"—c'est assurément notre Tim!
Yours ever, Spectator.
In a letter, published a while ago in the columns of Truth, and pertinently entitled "Cacophonous London," Dr. George Weldon ably pointed out the evil effects upon the nervous system of the community caused by vagrant singers, shrieking newspaper boys, German bands, piano organs, et hoc genus omne. We now notice that Mr. Charles Fox, who is "organising a campaign"—this "organising" is evidently on the homœopathic principle that "like cures like"—against the nuisance, has addressed a meeting of the Balloon Society on the subject. But why the Balloon Society? The "cacophony" complained of is not, unfortunately, in nubibus.
Transcriber's Note
Page 217: 'occured' corrected to 'occurred', though it may not have been an error in 1895 England.