The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1883-10-10
An Eleemosynary Colley's Railway
Journeys.

AhAOhS bhC poooChScEo 1hOu4 buc COA-
tinent a few days ago was the railway
dog Help, who had Just returned from
one of those ollectins
trips which have made the animal so
well known. Help, who is a Scotch
colley, was educated to this work of
charity by Climpson, the guard of the
night-boat train on the London. Brigh-
ton and South Coast line. and since
starting on his useful career has trav-
eled over most of the lines of the king
dom, gathering donations for the Or
phan Fund of the eAmalgamated Society
of Railway Servants, and has been so
eminently successful in his tours that
the General Secretary of the society has
now on hand many invitations to the
colley from different stations on the
various railways, alr asking for its as
sistance. Eventually, no doubt, when
Great Britain has been exhausted
though If the tours are made annually
this may never be-Help may be sent
across the Atlantic, in which case the
possibilities of the future can only be
limited in conjecture by the length of
dogs usual life. This, unfortunately,
is all too short to enable the animal TO
arrive at the degree of intelligence
which, if its span of existence were
longer, it seems probable it would at
tain. Meanwhile the eleemosynary col
ley is making the best of his time, and
the sum of his collections for the fund
is already very considerable. BY his
French expedition he has collected
some f12, and it is anticipated that. If
no accident happens to this four-legged
missiona' y-box, his contributions will
amount in the aggregate to some hun
dreds- of pounds during the course of
the tours now on the programme
planned out for him. Introduced by
the chief officer of the steamship Brit
tany to the Vice Consul at Dieppe. 1.-THE
railway-dog of England" collected in a
very short time about $50 francs at that
seaport, and on the steamer coming
back at Newhaven got about f6 more,
delivering the total at the head office of
the society in the City Road, without any
of those deductions for personal ex-
penses" which unfortunately run away
sometimes with so much of the proceeds
of charitable offertories.
Help Is not of course, by many, the
first ''railway-dog" of fame, for Fan and
Hero and others have all had their day
of honor. But he is, as far as we know,
the first that has had his travelling saga.
cities directed to such practical pur-
poses. His predecessors had all devel-
oped an amazing intelligence as to the
direction and destination of trains; and
taking their hints probably from seeing
particular engine-driver and guard on
particular train, and remembering
from past experience, what such a con-
junction of person and locomotive
meant, became perfect barking BRAD
shaws-" They got into trains and
changed at their proper stations,
crossed lines and waited for another
train, took short cuts across the
country to meet an express due at q
certain point at a certain time, and
altogether maneuvred their way
about the leading railway systems
in a manner that astonished even the
employees of the different lines. In
these expeditions, too, they were some
times found useful for taking back
small articles which the owner had
carried with him by mistake, or for de-
hvering them at given points. Help,
however, is probably the first dog con-
nected with a railway that has acted
as collector for fund On the Conti-
nent, however, in the past a mendicant
fraternity, the ''Sans-Souliers, trained
dogs to carry their begging boxes, and
after q while, as the animals soon got
to know the monks regular beats and
to distinguish the class of person whom
they were accustomed to solicit for
aims, sent them on their rounds by
themselves, and thus vicariously arrived
at the credit of collecting money for
their order and the poor whom they
supported. Sitting on the wooden
benches outside the monastery, they
summed themselves at their ease and
told their beads, while the dogs, with
their money-boxes round their necks
and bag of blessed vouchers-to be
presented by the almsgiver at the next
confession and duly credited to him in
the good graces Of Mother Church
dawdled about the roads and visited
the regular succession Of houses.