New York Dogs

WATERTON, the traveller, writing in 1824, says that he observed very few dogs in the streets of New York. Had he lived to visit us in these later days, he might rather have expressed his surprise at the number and variety of canine specimens with which the city is overstocked. From the aristocratic Italian greyhound of the fashionable avenues, to the mongrel cur of Mackerelville, nearly every kind of dog known to fanciers of the canine race is here represented. Dogs are so numerous in New York, indeed, that they have already become a nuisance. Not long since, a cry was raised against them in the newspapers. The presence of dogs in large numbers was said to be deleterious to health in large cities, and the matter was deemed of sufficient importance to attract the attention of the Board of Health, though it does not appear that any steps in regard to it have yet been taken by that body. In addition to the heinous crime of hydrophobia, for which the four-legged “ friend of man ” has long been an object of mistrust, sundry new charges were brought against him, some detractors averring that an effluvium exhaling from dogs bears disease upon its wings, so that, at last, weakminded people began to look upon Ponto’s kennel in the back yard as a very Pandora’s box of maladies too numerous and appalling to be contemplated without terror.

Although there is nothing that can properly be called pastoral in the features of New York, yet it is a fact that dwellers in that city have sometimes opportunities afforded them of studying the habits of one of the most pastoral as well as sagacious of the canine family, — the “ colley,” or Scotch sheepdog. Through certain streets of the city drovers are allowed to pass with their cattle and sheep, on their way from rural districts to city slaughterhouses. Long before dawn of morning the stentorian “ Hi ! hi ! of the cattle-drovers and the shrill “ Yap ! yap ! ” of the ungentle shepherds, who urge their flocks onward to inevitable perdition by thus imitating the yelping of dogs, wake from their slumbers the vexed inhabitants of these streets. In some cases, though not often, the sheep - drovers are accompanied by genuine colleys, and it repays one (in summer at least) to travel from couch to window, and watch the intelligence and tact with which these sagacious creatures aid their masters in keeping the sheep together. Now one of them will run ahead to a cross - street, to prevent the sheep from straying from the right path. Another will busy himself with bringing up stragglers from the rear, — a duty in which he is of more use than half a dozen boys. A common feat with them, when a sheep bolts from the farther side of the flock, is to jump upon the backs of the sheep and run nimbly across upon what is, in fact, a cleverly improvised pontoon of mutton, although the drover probably never dreams of comparing it to any such thing. The pranks of these most professional of dogs call to mind the heath-clad hills of Scotia and her misty vales. Fancy easily conjures up the distant droning of bagpipes on the breeze. Deer-stalkers are dimly seen stalking along the distant ridge that cuts against the gray sky. Children of the mist gambol among the gorse and whins on the brae-side, while, naturally, a conspicuous figure in the foreground is the Ettrick shepherd, wrapped in his plaidie, and accompanied by that eccentric colley of his, who, when the family used to kneel down to prayer before retiring for the night, would gravely arise from his allotted place near the chimney-nook and place himself in the position of pointing the cat, that being, as he supposed, the act in which the other members of the family were engaged.

While walking in Central Park, a short time since, near one of the wide ranges over which sheep roam, my attention was attracted to the movements of a dog crouched in a rather suspicious attitude under a wayside seat a little in advance. As I approached he made several short sorties from his stronghold, barking furiously at me, and showing a determination to maintain his position or perish in the attempt. Passing on, without appearing to notice him, I could see that he was a Scotch sheep-dog, although somewhat singularly marked, his head and forequarters being white, and his hindquarters black. Another glance showed me a shepherd’s crook leaning against the seat, and this at once accounted for the action of the dog, who had been left to watch it. A little farther on I met the shepherd himself, a small old Irishman, who was much pleased when I related the incident. “ No one man,” said he, “ no, nor two, could take away that crook, nor anything else, from wherever I left it, so long as the colley was there to watch it.”

Within a few years past huge Russian wolf-hounds are frequently to be seen in the streets of New York. The breed is said to have been brought originally from the Ural Mountains, where it is used for the protection of the sheepfolds. Some fine animals of this kind were kept, a few years since, by the proprietor of a cobwebby old drinking-cave in the lower part of the city. This place was a curiosity in its way. On the floor, which was covered with sawdust, barrels lay promiscuously about, as if helpless after a night’s debauch, and these served as benches for sundry unaccountable men of the ” loafer ” class, who lounged there, apparently for a chance of being invited to drink. In a dusky room at the farther end of the bar, a more respectable class of customers was accommodated. In summer and winter alike, hot Scotch whiskey-punch, served in large goblets, was the staple of the place, and, as a sort of guaranty that one of the materials of that seductive beverage, at least, should be ready when called for, there was always a man seated upon a chair in the middle of the room, engaged in breaking into lumps a loaf of sugar placed upon another chair. In the bar-room, near the entrance door, a placard was posted, inscribed with the warning, “ Do not speak to the Dog.” This referred to a great wolfhound of the Siberian breed, belonging to the proprietor of the place, who generally kept loose on the premises one of several maintained by him. Among them was a black and white one of immense size and remarkable symmetry. This animal was an especial terror to the loafers who used to lounge among the whiskey-barrels. If any of them indulged in loud talk, or showed a disposition to quarrel, the great watch-dog would rise from his lair by the stove, and saluting them with a growl suggestive of an approaching earthquake, and a show of teeth that might cover with humiliation a royal tiger of Bengal, would reduce them at once to silence, without any interference on the part of the proprietor o: his assistants.

Like most overgrown creatures, many dogs of this variety, indeed most of them, are very deficient in symmetry, weakness of the hind - quarters especially being often observable in them. They are much esteemed by German butchers and beer-house keepers of sporting tendencies, who make money by breeding them for sale. A German brewery in the upper part of the city is guarded by several of these animals, which impart to it a very feudal and imposing appearance. Dogs of ordinary size display much terror when confronted by the Russian hounds. One morning, when passing through a city park, I saw a good-sized dog — a sort of mongrel setter — carrying a market-basket for a young woman From a distance there came bounding down upon him one of the terrible hounds, four or five yards at a jump. Immediately upon catching sight of him the dog with the basket let it drop, and fled howling away toward remote purlieus, while his assailant attacked the plunder, and would have made short work with the beefsteaks that formed a part of it, but for the strong wire muzzle with which his chops were confined. A dog of this breed is sometimes to be seen led about the streets of New York as an advertisement for a chiropodist or some such professional, whose name and address are marked upon the body-cloth worn by the animal.

In many parts of the city, and particularly along Broadway, dogs of several varieties are offered for sale. The regular dog-dealer of the sidewalk is usually, perhaps from association, a man of cynical expression, the inroads upon whose garments appear to have been made by rats or some such rodent vermin, rather than by the gentle though pernicious moth. He delivers himself of no “ patter,” like that of the sidewalk dealer in sundry small wares, but seems to rely for notice upon his dumb charges, whose beseeching glances at the passers of the street often bespeak attention and lead to business. He usually takes his station at a corner in some busy street, where he props himself in a convenient angle of architecture, or takes a seat on the plinth of the railing. Perhaps he has a couple of Newfoundland pups for sale, and the drollest of all the kinds offered by street dog-fanciers are they. Even when only two or three months old they are very large ; far too heavy to be hawked about in arms, like some of the smaller breeds. The dealer conveys them in a large basket to the spot selected by him. Arrived there, he takes them from the basket, which he arranges so as to form a pedestal upon which to display them to the best advantage, and upon this they are seated bolt upright, faces well to the front. The queer, half-laughing, half-sleepy expression on the faces of these pups is very amusing. Whenever one of the young Newfoundlanders grows very drowsy, and shows a disposition to lie down, the dealer whips him up by the tail, and, holding him head downwards for a while, rubs his hair briskly against the grain, and then plumps him down again upon the basket, chucks him under the chin to make him hold his head up, and raps his absurdly thick legs with a switch to bring them out into proper position. And the pups take all this very quietly, never uttering a cry.

Snow-white pups of the Esquimaux and Spitz breeds, decorated with blue neckties, are often hawked for sale in the streets. These attract much notice from women, whose sympathies with the little dogs are perhaps enhanced by the bit of bright ribbon. Sometimes a tender-hearted female, usually French or German, will stop to kiss and fondle them. Although these demoiselles seldom buy dogs, yet the dealers are shrewd enough to encourage them in caressing the animals, knowing that it is a cheap and effective advertisement, and will eventually lead swains to purchase. From seven to ten dollars is a common price for an Esquimaux or Spitz pup, a few weeks old. The prices of Spitz dogs, however, appear to be regulated by their color, which varies through several shades. Pure white is the color most prized. Here, for instance, comes a boy leading a half-grown Spitz dog of a yellow or drab hue, his price for which is ten dollars. Next you meet a man with a snow-white dog of the same breed and size under his arm, and fifteen dollars is the least he will take for it. Fancy dogs possessing first-rate points, however, are not usually to be found for sale in the street. The dealers who have regular establish ments keep a sharp lookout for such and the prices obtained for them are much greater than those mentioned. One morning, in the Bowery, I saw a large Spitz dog of the pure white variety trotting demurely after his master, a German of the mechanic class. This dog attracted much notice from the fact of his having a meerschaum pipe in his mouth. He held the pipe firmly between his teeth, and exactly as if he were an old smoker. Every now and then he would stop to look wistfully about him, or would trot over to a shop door, which impelled a comic street-boy to suggest that “ the cuss was looking for a light.” A dog of such remarkable social qualities as this one would probably be worth fifty dollars.

Among the rarer kinds of dogs occasionally met with in the streets of New York, few seem to be more out of place than the English greyhound, specimens of which are sometimes to be observed accompanying men of fashionable garb and leisurely deportment. This noble kind of dog must be greatly disgusted with city life and associations. The sight of the dead hares hung out by game-dealers on their door-posts must bring premature crow’s-feet to the corners of his vigilant eyes, as he recalls to mind the breezy downs over which, in the good times that are passed, he used to course the long-legged hare of his native land. Here, in the great thundering city, he feels that he is an encumbrance and a drone. He is not a watch-dog, like the formidable wolf-hound or the wakeful terrier. His size precludes him from holding the position of a lapdog or parlor pet; and, as he does not affect the society of horses, the stable has not for him the allurements to which he had been accustomed in his wellremembered kennel beyond the sea. On these accounts the English greyhound, wherever encountered in New York, wears usually a sad and reproachful expression on his long, slender visage. In crowded Broadway he keeps close to his master’s heels, with drooping head, and tail the depression of which indicates that of his harassed mind. It is rare to see a dog of this kind for sale in the streets. Here, in a fashionable thoroughfare, however, is a large and beautiful one, of a slate-blue color, held by a boy, a card affixed to his collar announcing that he is in the market, price forty dollars. On questioning his attendant, I am informed that the dog is an educated one, performing a variety of tricks. To satisfy myself of this, I get the address of the dog’s owner, who keeps a tavern for mechanics in the neighborhood of Central Park. Happening to be in that quarter of the city a day or two later, I visit the place and am introduced to “ Prince,” whom I find to be a very docile and intelligent creature, and more familiar than is usual with greyhounds, which are generally of a reserved, not to say snappish, disposition. His feats were chiefly of the acrobatic kind, and he appeared to take much pride in the performance of them. Among other things he leaped over a stick held by his master at a height of five feet, and he also walked about with facility on his hind legs, in which position he was as tall as a man of average height.

Some years ago a prominent object in the city was a notorious quack doctor, dashing along the thoroughfares on a spotted horse, and accompanied by a brace of fine English greyhounds. This, of course, was by way of an advertisement ; though envious persons used to say that the greyhounds were emblematical of the speed with which the “ doctor ” used to run his patients to earth.

Throughout the city there are many men who live by dealing in and doctoring dogs, and it is interesting to visit their establishments, which are generally underground. Some of them also have “ dog-farms ” in the country, where they keep their choicest dogs, bringing certain of them to town every day for show ; at these places sportsmen often keep their pointers and setters at board. The city establishment is usually a dark, close cellar, pervaded by a pungent odor of dog. When one’s eyes grow accustomed to a place of the sort, they see that the walls are adorned with cheap pictures of various breeds of dogs. On the shelves are arranged bottles containing dog medicines. Here a poster sets forth the virtues of a nostrum for the cure of mange, while another announces that “ dog oil for the cure of consumption ” is a leading article in the pharmacopœia of the place. Think of a consumptive bulldog, with a hectic flush upon its interesting face, and its regular doses of so many spoonfuls of codliver oil per diem! Dog-collars of all sorts and sizes, chains, couples, and trappings of every kind proper to the canine race, are suspended everywhere upon the walls. Stuffed specimens of dogs that had been famous for some specialty in their lifetime are invariably on show here. Bull-terriers, glaring ferociously through glass eyes, and painfully “ out of drawing ” as to their limbs, are sure to be among these. Moth-eaten black-and-tans are also common, the sawdust or tow with which they have been shapelessly set up by the taxidermist bursting forth at every fissure of their contracted skins. Some of these toy terriers are of wonderfully minute size, being manufactured from the skins of pups, and set up to represent dogs arrived at their full size. On a shelf skulls of dogs are arranged in rows, to give visitors an opportunity of studying canine craniology. The larger dogs are generally kept in an enclosure railed off at one side of the room. In one of these places I noticed a pointer dog chained up very short, and learned, on inquiry, that he was thus treated on account of his having killed two or three valuable fancy-dogs before his propensity for murder became known. This, in a pointer, was a rather unusual trait. Around the walls are several cages, in which the smaller dogs — Scotch terriers, Italian greyhounds, French and Spanish poodles, hairless Mexican dogs, and the like — are kept. These little prisoners sleep all the while, coiled up in corners, and in as small a space as possible, as if mortified at being thus caged up, like wild beasts in a menagerie.

From time to time regular dogshows have been held in New York, and at these were represented nearly all the choicest kinds, from the Siberian giant to the dwarf terrier and drawing-room spaniel. At one of these shows there was exhibited a dun-colored bulldog, a label on whose cage set forth that he was the famous animal who, while his master, a shipcaptain, lay in port somewhere on the coast of China, throttled and killed a Chinaman who had entered the ship’s cabin in the dead of the night, and was engaged in plundering it. This dog was a mild-looking animal enough, though one might guess that he was capable of showing much fury when aroused, and that the expression of his face must have been anything but placid when he “went for that heathen Chinee.”

The sense of duty seems to be very strong in dogs, and the perseverance with which a dog will perform a selfimposed task, day after day, fancying that it is his mission, is sometimes very amusing. There is a dog in New York that every day follows a Broadway omnibus plying between some uptown street and the Battery. His business is to keep as near that omnibus as possible, and this he does with wonderful zeal and often at the risk of his life. Sometimes, when the street is very much encumbered with vehicles, he takes to the sidewalk, along which he canters on three legs, —an affectation common to his kind, — stopping when the driver stops to take up passengers, and seeming to take as much interest in the business as though he were a stockholder of the line. This animal has frequently been run over, as is evident from his scars, as well as from his being sometimes coated all over with mud ; but he continues to follow zealously the particular ’bus of his affections, the dog-star of the destinies of which he apparently considers himself to be.

While I am writing, a heavily loaded express-wagon, drawn by a team of powerful bay horses, goes lumbering by. Between the horses, and attached by a chain to the axle-tree of the wagon, runs one of those spotted coach-dogs now so common in New York. There are deep ruts in the roadway, and the horses have every now and then to throw themselves well into their collars so as to pull the heavy load through. Whenever they give an extra tug the dog does the same, straining upon his chain until his nose almost touches the ground ; and then, when the wagon once more runs smoothly along, he trots merrily between the horses as before, with his tongue lolling out, and an expression in his eyes that seems to say, “ What splendid fellows to pull are we ! I guess the three of us could pull a house ! ”

Nearly all the barking done in New York — and there is a good deal of it — is done by the terriers that keep watch in the bakers' carts. These ficrce little animals are generally of the rough Scotch or common blackand-tan breeds. They are very aggressive, barking furiously at everybody and everything along the route, and thus “drawing the fire” of the town dogs, troops of which will sometimes follow a baker’s cart for a long distance, in full yelp, as if demandingbread, though their only object is to resent the insulting and ribald language of the pampered animal who barks himself hoarse at them from the cart. These terriers are very vigilant while the baker is absent for a short while from his cart, engaged in delivering bread. If anybody stops to look at them they display the wildest fury, gnashing their teeth and barking with a frenzy peculiar to dogs having a mission to fulfil. Touch the cart with the tip of your cane, and immediately the fierce little guardian of the vehicle leaps from it and makes straight for your legs, to defend which from his vigorous assaults all your powers of fencing will be put to the test. The baker’s dog is an object of general scurrility. Every street-boy makes faces and yells at him as he hurries past in the bread-cart. Every carter cracks his whip at him ; and if canine statistics were fully made out, they would doubtless show that the baker’s dog is a short-lived animal, his health broken by continual exasperation, and his death caused, in nine cases out of ten, by apoplexy arising from sudden ebullitions of temper.

The most thoroughly Bohemian of dogs are the nondescript ones maintained by the rag-pickers and cindersifters, who occupy feculent cellars in the vilest and most repellant byways of New York. Many people of this class are also to be found in that singular village of shanties perched upon the granite boulders just where Fifth Avenue touches Central Park, and it is here that the manners and customs of such dogs are to be studied to the best advantage. Lean, sneaking curs of no particular breed are to be seen foraging about everywhere in that vicinity. Many of them are large dogs, showing a dash of the Newfoundland, not unmixed with a suspicion of pointer or hound. The strongest of them are trained to draw the carts in which their owners carry home their unsavory pickings from the streets. Three of them, not often matched in color or size, are usually harnessed to the filthy vehicle. Unprincipled rascals as they are in other respects, the fidelity of these dogs to their masters is very remarkable. Watch a team of them apparently asleep under the shafts of the cart, and if you but touch it they will fire up directly and make for your legs. When not working they live in amity with the goats by which the splintered rocks are made picturesque, or indulge in dog-play with the half-savage children of the squatters who occupy the place.

One can tell when he is in a French quarter of the city by the numerous little curly poodle-dogs that cower about the areas and shop-doors. In these places slovenly old women are frequently to be seen attended by half a dozen dogs of this kind, which had originally been white, but have degenerated through smoke and dirt to a dingy gray. They are blear-eyed, shivering little wretches, the taste for which, one would think, like that for caviare and other not very nice things, must be an acquired one.

The fields and marshes beyond the suburbs of New York, especially on the New Jersey side, are much infested by German tradesmen and beer-house keepers of the sporting kind, who may be seen crossing the ferries of a morning from the city, with fowling-pieces slung at their backs and attended by sundry dogs. Sometimes these sporting dogs are half-bred pointers or setters, but more often they are of kinds not usually associated with the fowler and his gun. I have seen a German gunner roaming the marshes in company with a St. Bernard dog, a Russian bloodhound, and a beagle. A couple of robins or other small birds would probably be the net result of beating up the country with this formidable array. When the sporting dog of a German dies, he usually has him stuffed and placed in a glass case. Here, in the window of a German tavern, is a spotted setter so exhibited, painfully rigid and out of shape in his attitude of pointing a brace of equally deformed quail that squat among some calico foliage in a defile of wooden rocks. In a German wayside house not far from the city I know a large yellow dog, one of the circumstances of whose life is very peculiar and painful. He is a companionable dog, very fond of conversation, which he keeps up fluently with his tail. But the peculiarity about him is that he has no name. The honest old tapster who owns him assures me that they have never called the animal anything but “the dog.” The reason of this oversight he could not satisfactorily explain, but whenever he mentioned “the dog,” that slighted animal would wag his tail convulsively, and express with his intelligent eyes his sense of the reference.

Invited to a private view of some pet bears, I go with an acquaintance to a very rickety wooden structure in a back street of the city, within five minutes’ walk of Broadway. Entering through a crazy old gate made of planks gray with age and weather, we find ourselves in a badly paved enclosure that looks like something between a livery-stable alley and a farmyard. There is a strong odor of shambles about the place. The concern is one in which blood is put up for the use of sugar-refiners and for other purposes, and the atmosphere of the place is thoroughly impregnated with blood. The roofs of the sheds are studded with numerous pigeons, whose clean plumage makes pleasing contrast with the murky surroundings. About halfway up the yard, which is long and narrow, two well-grown black bears are chained to a post. The proprietor of the place, a rough-looking but very civil man of the sporting-butcher type, owns dogs, and he whistles for them to come. The first one that comes to his call is a small old bitch, one of a breed between a bull-terrier and a Spanish poodle, half blind with age and dissipation, nearly toothless, and much distorted as to her limbs by the wear and tear of a hundred fights. Suddenly and without the least preliminary skirmishing, the absurd little beast charges in on the bears, who are snuggling close together on their wet straw at the foot of the post. The fury of her attack, which is ludicrous enough in itself, is made more so by the apathy of the bears, who treat her as they would a mosquito, merely twitching their shaggy hides to shake her off. Presently, in shifting their positions, the bears accidentally get the fierce little creature squeezed in between them, and then a terrible shrieking and growling is heard, and the terrier, having extricated herself, gets away to a safe distance, from which she makes furious and noisy demonstrations against the unheeding bears. This attack, the owner tells us, is made several times a day, and generally with the same result, though sometimes the bears, when in bad humor, will strike their puny assailant with a fore-paw, and send her spinning away to a distance.

Another dog shown to us by the man of blood was a large black retriever, a cross, probably, between setter and Newfoundland dog. This dog was so much addicted to fetching, as his owner told us, that his favorite pastime was fetching the cat off from the roof of a high shed, a feat which he would perform without in the least hurting her, and puss appeared, indeed, to be on the best of terms with her canine friend.

While we were looking at the bears, the proprietor remarked that bears are by no means the stupid animals that they are sometimes considered to be. “ Watch them, now,” said he in a whisper, “ meal is what they like better than anything else, and when I say ‘ meal-tub,’ see if they don’t jump.” Then, raising his voice, he said, Well, I 'm going to the meal-tub.” In a flash the bears, which seemed to have been fast asleep, reared themselves up on their hind legs, straining at their chains with all their might, and sniffing with their expressive noses in the direction of the tub. Taking a couple of handfuls of meal from it the proprietor placed it on the ground before the bears, who eagerly threw themselves upon it and began licking it up. Presently, however, the male bear, carried away by his gluttonous instinct, jostled his companion from the repast with a savage growl. It was interesting to see with what meekness the poor female bear took this hint from her ill-mannered lord and master, whom she suffered to finish the meal at his leisure, resting her chin upon his broad back, with a resigned look of subjection pervading her ursine features.

With the setting in of the first hot days, a fiat goes forth from the municipal authorities, ordering that all dogs running at large without muzzles are to be destroyed by the police, In connection with this arrangement is the institution called the dog-pound. On a piece of waste ground at the foot of a street ending at the East River, there juts out on piles over the lapping waters of the dock a rickety building of wood, unpainted, and mildewed with age and weather. Visitors to this crib are admitted by a policeman out of uniform. Along one side of the room a space is railed off with lathes, and within this are generally to be seen forty or fifty dogs of many varieties, some few of them animals of value, but the majority curs of evil associations and low degree. These dogs, for the most part, have been brought in by men who look as currish as the worst of them, and who profess to have found them running loose in the streets. A gratuity of fifty cents is given to these industrials for each dog brought in by them. The dogs are tied up within the enclosure with the bits of dirty string by which their captors have dragged them to their “ vile dungeon.” Most of them are coiled away in feverish sleep, shaking and whimpering in dream as though haunted by bodings of their approaching fate. At the farther end of the room there is a large tank. Fitted to this, in such a way that it can be pressed down into it, is a strong wooden grating, and the tank is further provided with a hose through which it can be filled from the river below. Two or three squalid young men, in dirty flannel shirts and cowskin boots, are loitering about the place. At a signal from the policeman in charge, these men go in among the dogs, and, selecting the commonest of them, seize them one after another by the necks and hind feet and pitch them into the tank, the sides of which are so steep and slippery that there is no possibility of the wretched animals scrambling out. And now the lamentations set up by them are pitiful to hear. From their tremulous whines one can tell that they are perfectly conscious of their impending doom. They seem to be as certain of the death at hand as are the passengers of a ship foundering at sea. It is curious to watch the terrified looks of the more valuable dogs (which are kept for claim by owners), while all this is going on. They shake all over like leaves in the wind, and, lifting their quivering muzzles towards the rafters, give utterance to howls that are most lugubrious and heart-rending. When dogs enough have been thrown into the tank, the water is let in by means of the hose; the grating is fitted to its place and pressed down upon them ; and the “job,” as the executioners call it, is done.

The eagerness with which the better class of dogs confined in the pound watch for visitors is very remarkable. At every footstep that approaches, the most intelligent of them will start up, spring to the end of their tethers, and eagerly scan the features of the comers. When an owner comes to reclaim a lost favorite, the joy of the creature on recognizing him is touching in the extreme. Some of the dogs try to ingratiate themselves with any strange visitors who may arrive. Once, on visiting the pound, I remarked a particularly bright-looking young terrier, very shaggy as to his coat and of unusually large size. The efforts made by this knowing fellow to conciliate visitors were very amusing. If his tongue did not speak, certainly his eyes did, and his tail was absolutely eloquent. On inquiring of the policeman, I learned that dogs of that class were not usually put to death, but were kept for a reasonable time, and then, if not claimed by owners, sold for a trifle to some person who would be sure to come in and take a fancy to them. It is in this way that the dealers often pick up presentable dogs ; and so I am fain to hope that the young terrier with the vehement tail soon found a good master, and was installed in a comfortable home with first-rate ratting on the premises.

Among the applicants at the dogpound, women are quite as often seen as men. The Frenchwomen of poodledog fancies, already referred to, are frequent visitors there, hopeful of being in time to find and save from execution some of their pets that have strayed away from home, or been spirited thence by speculative Arabs of the street. The last time I visited the place a tearful Frenchwoman came in, and cast eager glances among the prisoners tethered along the wall. In accents as broken as her English, she asked the attendants whether a small dog of which she gave a description had been brought to the pound within a day or two. She was informed that several dogs answering to that description had been disposed of by drowning within a few days past. Then the bereaved spinster’s tears flowed copiously, and she tried to find consolation by caressing the smallest and ugliest of the dogs within her reach. One hideous little whity-brown poodle, with bleared eyes and a bald tail, seemed particularly to take her fancy, and this the guardian of the place, mollified by her intense grief, allowed her to carry away.

Notwithstanding the efforts made by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to suppress the diversions of the dog-pit, that kind of “sport” is yet one of the brutal features of the low social strata of New York. The best place in the city wherein to study its vilest and most depraved specimens of humanity are the dens in which dog-fights and ratbaiting are the attractions held out to “draw” custom to the whiskey-tap. Here the theory of “natural selection” is illustrated in a new and forcible manner; the bipeds who frequent the places bearing a wonderful resemblance to the quadrupeds in features and disposition. Among the men who find their diversion in the animosities of dogs and rats, two types of physiognomy are prevalent. Here, on the benches that surround the pit, are to be seen men with absolutely no facial angles. So flat are their features, that straight lines might easily be drawn with a ruler upon their faces. They might pass for half-brothers to their bull-terriers, though to the latter the imputation would be an insult and a gross wrong. Other men may be observed here with facial angles of the most acute mould, the recession of their foreheads and chins giving them strong claims to relationship with the rats of the place. All of them are scoundrels of the worst kind, more cruel than the dogs maintained by them, meaner than the rats. There is no monotony in the entertainments presented at these places. Sometimes two bullterriers are pitted against each other, to fight for the championship of the canine ring. Sometimes a single dog is turned into the arena, to destroy a certain number of rats in a given time. There are instances in which ruffians of the flat-faced type have backed themselves to perform the same feat, plunging about the pit on all-fours and shaking the rats with their teeth. That plucky little pig, the peccary, or Mexican wild-boar, not unfrequently figures as a member of the company. They bait him with dogs, whose bowels he generally rips out with his tusk while they are biting off his ears. Sometimes a raccoon is placed in an oblong box having a door at one end of it, and the diversion is to have him dragged out by dogs.

With regard to dogs moving in the fashionable society of New York, little, if anything, need be said. Like their masters and mistresses, they have become so artificial in their lives and manners as to have but little either of canine sagacity or eccentricity to recommend them to notice.

Charles Dawson Shanly.