“I put no faith in the vulgar stories of human beings betaking themselves, through a dog-bite, to dog-habits: and consider the smotherings and drownings, that have originated in that fancy, as cruel as the murders for witchcraft. Are we, for a few yelpings, to stifle all the disciples of Loyola—Jesuits’ bark—or plunge unto death all the convalescents who may take to bark and wine?
“As for the hydrophobia, or loathing of water, I have it mildly myself. My head turns invariably at thin washy potations. With a dog, indeed, the case is different—he is a water-drinker; and when he takes to grape-juice, or the stronger cordials, may be dangerous. But I have never seen one with a bottle—except at his tail.
“There are other dogs who are born to haunt the liquid element, to dive and swim—and for such to shun the lake or the pond would look suspicious. A Newfoundlander, standing up from a shower at a door-way, or a spaniel with a parapluie, might be innocently destroyed. But when does such a cur occur?”
Mr. Hood answers the question himself by “hydrophobia” of his own creation, namely, an engraving of a dog, on whom he makes “each particular hair to stand an end;” and whom he represents walking biped-fashion; he hath for his shield, as Randle Holme would say, an umbrella vert, charged with the stick thereof, as a bend or.
“The career of this animal,” says Mr. Hood, “is but a type of his victim’s—suppose some bank clerk. He was not bitten, but only splashed on the hand by the mad foam or dog-spray: a recent flea-bite gives entrance to the virus, and in less than three years it gets possession. Then the tragedy begins. The unhappy gentleman first evinces uneasiness at being called on for his New River rates. He answers the collector snappishly, and when summoned to pay for his supply of water, tells the commissioners, doggedly, that they may cut it off. From that time he gets worse. He refuses slops—turns up a pug nose at pump water—and at last, on a washing-day, after flying at the laundress, rushes out, ripe for hunting, to the street. A twilight remembrance leads him to the house of his intended. He fastens on her hand—next worries his mother—takes a bit apiece out of his brothers and sisters—runs a-muck, ‘giving tongue,’ all through the suburbs—and finally, is smothered by a pair of bed-beaters in Moorfields.
“According to popular theory the mischief ends not here. The dog’s master—the trainer, the friends, human and canine—the bank clerks—the laundresses—sweet-heart—mother and sisters—the-two bed-beaters—all inherit the rabies, and run about to bite others.”
But, is not this drollery on hydrophobia feigned? Is it not true that a certain bootmaker receives orders every July from the author of “Whims and Oddities,” for boots to reach above the calf, of calf so inordinately stout as to be capable of resisting the teeth of a dog, however viciously rabid, and with underleathers of winter thickness, for the purpose of kicking all dogs withal, in the canicular days? These queries are not urged upon Mr. H. with the tongue of scandal; of that, indeed, he has no fear, for he dreads no tongue, but (to use his quotation from Lord Duberly) the “vermicular tongue.” This little exposure of his prevailing weakness he has provoked, by affecting to discredit what his sole shakes at every summer.
The “New Series of Whims and Oddities” abounds with drolleries. Its author’s “Forty Designs” are all ludicrous; and, that they have been engraven with fidelity there can be little doubt, from his compliment to the engraver. “My hope persuades me,” he says, “that my illustrations cannot have degenerated, so ably have I been seconded by Mr. Edward Willis; who, like the humane Walter, has befriended my offspring in the wood.”[478] Though the engravings are indescribably expressive, yet a few may be hinted at, viz.
“Speak up, sir!” a youth on his knees, vehemently declaring his love, yet in a tone not sufficiently loud, to a female on a sofa, who doth “incline her ear” with a trumpet, to assist the auricle.