Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-09-23

John the signing of Magma Charta anC
the death of Gelert, the hound ? tt
how many does the mention of contem
porary English art bring up, first, tn,
dogs of Landseer? What counties.
stories of canine sagacity, fidelity
courage, self-sacrifce, crowd all oul
memories to justify that pithy saying
of Hamerton, 81 pity the man who car
live dogless life ?"
Never was there a more patheticaI
exhibition of prosecuted innocence tla1
the condition of the typical dog 70 day.
And, as usual, it is Madame Rumor,
ignorant and bigoted, who has wrought
the mischief. Thus it is. Ages age
the long-headed Egyptians, careful in
all things, observed that the Nile rose
annually with the heliacal rising of a
certain brilliant star This star they
named Sillor, the File. And because
its coming warned them to their ter
races above the reach of the flood, they
politely typifed it as a dog, or a man
with dogs head. The Latins adopted
the star as Sirius, but forgot, or never
knew, the significance of its name, and
folly and fable assigned it an increas-
ing influence on the heat, and a conse-
quent balefulness. Hippocrates and
Pliny reported the popular belief that
on the day of the rising of this star
wine turned sour, dogs went mad, all
other animals tegan to waste, and man
to droop. The Romans even sacrificed
brown dog to the evil-mined lumi-
nary to appesse his rage. We moderns
go farther, and seemed inclined to slay
the whole race because the imaginative
Egyptians complimented useful star
with canine attributes.
1t is probably useless to remind the
believers in the malevolence of Sirius
that that slandered orb tyinkles at the
comfortable distance of two trillions
two hundred billions of miles from our
proper planet, and that the illustrative
cannon ball, travelling at the rate of
four hundred and eighty miles an hour,
might reasonably desire to rest before
the end of the five hundred and twenty
three thousand two hundred and eleven
years which it must take to reach there.
Under these circumstances certain
minds would doubt whether the ap-
pearance of the dog-star kindled the
fires of our blazing July aud August
And their Doubt would gather strength
from the well-known fact that the pro-
cession of the equinoxes constantly
pospones the heliacal rising of the i'll
reputed summer visitor, and, in the
course of five or six thousand years,
will bring about its annual advent in
frosty November.
Science declared long ago that hy-
drophobia was not a midsummer mad
ness, and that the practice of muzzling
dogs was a useless cruelty. Every
year, Notwithstanding, the large cities
are subject to an epidemic of panic ter
ror concerning rabies, and of panic
barbarity toward its possible or impos-
sible victims. Perhaps it is not too
much to say that the fostering of the
lowest instincts of the gaD,in by the
of the dog pound, the
system of rewards for dog taking, the
publication of the horrible details of
dog torturing and the spectacle of the
selfish and cruel vindictiveness of
whole community toward one dumb
animal, threatens greater danger to
society than the unhindered bite of the
of quadrupeds that kills the
body, and after that has no more than
it can do.
Let us have a spasm of sense.
and dangerous curs should
doubtless be dispensed with, but quiet
ly, privately and painlessly. All other
dogs have right to their harmless ex-
istence. They have a right, also. to
an unmuzzled nose and unlimited
water. Thus cared for, July develops
no more rabies in the poor creatures
than January. Men are certainly more
irritable in the blaze of midsummer.
We have no right to expect a superior
virtue in the uncatechised dog. Ii he |
is teased and trifled with, he very prop |
erly demonstrates in the only way open /
to him. 1t is wisdom to be patient |
with him as with one another, and |
cave fellow-dog and fellow-man as
much as possible to themselves on 4
.hese scorching days. A mad dog is a
most horrible fact, and well nigh an
unknown one. A mad man is hardly /
more agreeable, and, alas, by no means
Just now there seems to |
ome hundreds of thousands in this |
,ity alone, and mental quarantine
rom which they could be discharged
,nly when cured appears more neces-
ary restraint than dOg-pound.-
Christian Union.