The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1896-03-12
The Dogs oil Conslautinople.


No traveller returning from Con-
stantinople considers description of
thnt wonderful city at all complete
without a reference to dogs, which are
almost as numerous as the inhabitants,
and quite as peculiar. Most of them
are probably descendants of half.
tanned wolves and iackals, and they re-
tain the meanest qualities of both.
NANCY, diseased, Scared, bleeding,
with ragged coats, broken legs, and
never n whole tail among them, they
lie about the butchers stalls, occupy
the middle OF tho streets in squads of
ten or dozen, SO that camels,
donkeys, horses and people have to
turn out to make way for them dig
little dens in the roads, where they
raise large families without molesta-
tion; follow the poor liver.vendors in
screaming, yelping packs, half the
time disposing Of his wares before he
meets his first customer, and making
his life more of n burden than the
meat he carries; upset the sweetmeat
peddlers and devour their stores bark
and yelp and fight increasingly, and
fall upon everything that is ut all
helpless, from Il wounded goat or
sheep, broken.down camel, or
donkey, to drunken, reeling stranger,
and dispose of them. Strange as it
reg sHer. sH, zoo, zee asa .2isers?; ciis cc.es
lures are not only tolerated bat il
would be considered criminal by thu
Turks to kill them.
Some years ago, the dogs of Top
Hane at Constautinople beca mo abso
lutely unbearNble, so that a'ilast til,
Sultan, Abdul Medjid, consel led that
they should be exported. Accord
ingly a large vessel was Chartered,
thousands of miserable c,rs were
coaxed on board by vSt,,ou induce.
ments, and away they mdrruy sailed
to one of the large, rocky islands in
the Sea of Marmora. Here feast was
spread, and the dogs disembarked for
picnic, and while they were making
merry, dogglsh fashion, the ip sailed
away without them. But hen the
people in Constantinople fc md what
had happened they raised 81 IN an up
roar that the Government was forced
to send their vessel out to bring their
dogships back again. and since then
they have been felt in peace. Why
they are thus tolerated has never been
explained. Some say "bccause the
Koran, which is the Turkish Bible,
recommended charity toward all crea-
tures;" others, "because the sacred
books speak of them;" and Others,
"because Mohammed, the victorious,
brought numerous train of them
when he entered triumphantly into
the city" Another odd thing is that
though they are thus protected and
allowed to remain IN the city, not one
of them has master, for they are con.
demned by the Koran as "un clean"
Like n well-dIsciplined army, they
have their sentinels and their guards,
and woo to the stranger who shall
allow himself to wander into the coun.
try of the enemy He is at once set
uron and torn limb from limb, and in
n trice the last vestige Of him has van
ished from the sight of men. The only
good thing that can be snid of these
dogs is that they keep the streets clean
of everything but themselves. No
garbage carts are needed there, for
the dogs have never been known to
leave norsel OF anything about that
was capable OF being swallowed.