The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1894-03-09

was nothing to him hut bones.
He raised his head from his paws
and snapped eagerly at great, bulgy
bluehy that buzzed lazily around, and
swallowed it with gulp. But one
fly is not much when one has hollow
within him that feels as big rs a
| church.
Those hollows were common in Rat
Row. 1t was the river street of large
city, where squalid men, women and
children fought, quarreled, cursed and
stole their wretched lives long to keep
that inner void just sufficiently filled
10 ward of the Potter's Field. "Stole, !"
I said. The younger habital is, per
haps, limited their achieven ents to
this. AS for their elders well, if a
man with comfortably filled stomach
strayed into their power and would
give up hie ticker" and 9th n valu-
ables like n gentleman and evince no
disposition to "squeaI," nll right,
perhaps; if he rebelled, the river was
handy. Then fresh flow of fire.
water, moro desperate fighting, ours
ing and cutting for day or two.
Sometimes rush Of patrol-wagon and
armed police, bleeding body carried
away, a living, sullen, horrible one or
| two to answer for tit was an old
story to the blue-coats.
Thus, Jags was dog of the slums,
kicked, cuffed and starved, with good
points in him that once led an uptown,
clubman to coax him off the street
when Jags inadvertently wandered,
| foraging, to a respectable quarter.
For three days Jags WAS fed, petted
and began to grow handsome. The:
first hour Of liberty found him fawn-'
ing Joy1ully at the feet of Blinks, the
most brutal of all the Rat Row brutes
whom Jags followed with a worship
ing fidelity only found in some women
and most dogs He was ready to
starve with his horrible idol rather
than desert him for soft treatment
and unlimited bones with meat on
| them.
"Hcre ye be, be ye, ye cuss :
Thought ye'd mosey, did ye? Beer
feedin', has ye? Thought ye'd sneak
Take that-nd that nd that" :.
THAT was series of brutal kicks
that made the poor dog yelp out in
piteous agony. When they ceased
one of Jags's beautiful. loving brown
| eyes was gone. Knocked out or It's
bleeding socket by the master for whom!
he had sacrificed wealth and comfort
That was merely variation of the
fortunes that Jags's master habitually
put upon him. If it ever occurred to,
the dog that he had anything to for
| give he did SO, freely, generously and
| lovingly, creeping all the mord
adoringly TO the feet that kicked him.
If he ever thought, wistfully, that his
master might have done a more meroi!
full thing and relieved him of a
real trouble by kicking out his
stomach, he never said So
just now he dragged his bony length
to the side of Blinks, keeping watch
full eye for kicks, md breathed long,
sobbin8 sigh of relief when he got
close to his idol without awakening
him. The man was seated on broken
chair outside the tottering tenement
house where he and Jags had kennel.
| His bloatcd red face WAS turned up-
ward to the sun, his breath reeked bad
whisky, the soft summer breeze stirred
his loathsome rags. One wonders
how even the breeze could touch him
Blinks was happy. He was ''full, " not
of that unnecessary luxury, food, but
of vile whisky.
His slumber was soon disturbed by
a splash, chorus of yells from the
gamins on the river bank, and with
bare, red arms dripping with soap
suds, her frowsy hair flying in the
wind, Betsy O'Riley rushed from her
washtub.
"The babby The darlint! It's
drowndid he is intoirely! Howly
Mary! Run, ye murtherin' divils |!
Save i'm Hip"
| 1t would not have created much Of
sensation in Rat Row society if a
half dozen little ''rats" mad been
swept away altogether by the river. A
few draggled women lounged to doors
or windows, two or three blear-e eyed
men, among whom was Blinks, lurched
lazily toward the place where the
small, dirty figure had gone under the
muddy water, giving it plenty of time
to dr0Yn in the most leisurely way
before th6ir arrival. On!y the screech-
ing mother aud the dog were really
alive to the situntion
Jags was weak from long fasting,
out the instinct inherited from a long
line of noble ancestors neryed him.
In flash, it seemed, his gaunt body
was in the water and out, and Betsy
had snatched her soaked "kid. y