Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1896-09-05
THE DOGCEMETERY.
a SEXTON kRELATES SOME CURIOUS
FACTS CONCERNING 1T.


Costly Monuments Erected over Dead
Pups by Their Sentimental owners-Po-
etical Epitaphs and Biblical Texts Setting
Forth the Virtues OF the Departed
Toilet clubs are not the only luxur,r
that dogs enjoy in common with man
kind; they are pampered also with
cemeteries.
On the northwestern outskirts of Lon :
don, in a fine old country mansion.
surrounded by extensive grounds, live !
and labors one of the wealthiest andt
most fashionable of veterinary surgeons,
who numbers among his customers va
rious members of the royal family, many.
persons of title and distinguished lead
ers of society-in fact, his prices are SO.
handsome that ordinary middle class
mOrtals cannot afford to avail them
selves of his services.
He is a dog specialist, leaving all the
remainder of the animal kingdom in the
hands of other practitioners, and the
fact that he has made a very comfort
able fortune justifes him in his exclu-
siveness. And not only will he tend the
canine species when they are ailing, but
he is prepared TO bury them when they
die and to bury them, moreover, with
the most gratifying pageantry and
decOrum.
The cemetery reserved for this pur-
pose is in a corner of a field ON his
estate; but. being Enclosed by wall and
planted about with trees nothing of
ha frafo - csf L,
own windows or from any point of the
surrounding country, so that few, if
any, of the neighbors are aware that
such place of sepulcher exists in the
midst of them.
Some of the dawgs buried here, -
said an attendant, showing the favored
inquirer round, ''died while we had
'em under treatment in horspital, as you
may say, but many of 'em died IN their
own homes and was brought as much IS
six and seven miles TO their funeral. %
The headstones and monuments In
this singular cemetery are as large and
often as costly as any placed above the
average human body, and the epitaphs
on them are not infrequentiy quite rs
eulogistic
This one here" observed the attend
ant, pointing out particularly neat
and well kept grave with a red marble
obellsk at the head of il, "is where two
pug dawgs were buried. They belonged
TO an old lady who brought 'em over
with her from Paris. She had 'em for
several years, aud we We're always be-
ing called in 10 doctor 'em, though they
were always suffering from nothing but
overlooking. AT last one day they
were both taken i'll together-they' d
eaten something as wasn't good for 'em
and they died. She was dreadful cut
up about it-she couldn't have been
more so if they'd been children-and
she had 'em buried here in two as neat
little alright collins as ever you see
She comes every now and then ON Wis
1t, and she pays our gardener 20 shil-
hngs year extra specially to water the
flowers she planted ON the grave and
keep it all tidy.
Now, here we have what you may
call a family vault, which belongs TO a
nobleman, as you see for yourself on
the tablet over the doorway. It,stdeep
and lined with bricks and You go.down
into it by flight of steps There's six
dawgs down ON the shelves already in
lead lined collins. If you look through
the grating in the door. you'll see the
names and ages on the stone that covers
the opening. His lordship's uncommon
( fond of his dawgs, and whenever fresh
one dies it's brought up here and the
vaults opened for it. We've another
vault like this, which Wen come to
presently, only it belongs to lady
ooh yes: / think I NAV GOV a,.o,--
dawg Is buried in a box cf some sort
and a fair proportion of 'em in proper
collins, brass mounted and everything.
You'd hardly believe how some of the
owners will cry at the funeral. It's
mostly ladies that bury their pets here.
OF course. AS a rule, they've got more
sentiment about this sort of thing than
men have. Nearly all of 'em come reg
ular for the first few weeks with
wreaths and buncIes Of flowers. but the
majority of 'em begin to drop that after
month or two. Though there's dawR
buried yOnder-see that fiat stone with
a railing round it?-the old lady has
come on the anniversary of his death
every year since I've been here, and that
nigh eight years now, and she seems
as sorry about him still as if he'd been
a Christian like me and you
Another remarkable feature of this
cemetery is that, besides the names and
ages of the dogs inferred and in many
instances fiattering records of their vir-
tues. some Of the tOmbstones are inscrib-
ed with pOetical quotations and, incred-
ible as it may sound, even with Biblical
texts. London Tit-Bits