Waterbury Democrat., 1901-08-13
CRUELTY TO DOGS.
PREDICAMENT OF AN OLD MAN WHO ATTEMPTED A RESCUE.

--9 VI = ~<eANSS COSS w GIG AOuS- ing a Pet Dog and He Attempted to Take Him Away But Was Stun ned by Plunging Into Water
 Where the Bad Boys Had
 the Dog-Cruelty to
 Dogs and Lynch Law
 Are Two of Kind
 It takes all kinds of people to make world, and that fact was illustrated in peculiar way not long ago in New 1ork. To those who read Of the incl dent It may occur that some pains ought to be taken to sort out different types of humanity and consider which is best worth encoura ging.
 There is a line of coast steamships
 plying betweene New York and Bos-s ton, which owns as its mascot q small
 woolly dog known as Pete. He has
 travelled to and fro on one steamer or another for several years, and has al-
 ways been well treated. One day dur ing the recent hot weather, a lot of
 boys were swimming near one of the steamers which was tied up in New York harbor, and it occurred to them that they wanted little fun. So what did they do but catch Pete, who was I loafing about in a sociable and friend l ly way, and throw him into the river!
 Not content with that, they began pelt- l ing him with stones when he tried to l swim ashore. To many people it will seem strange that there should be any
 fun in that sort of thing, but there is.
 The more miserable a defenseless anil l nal can be made and the longer he can l be made to fight for q chance of life
 before being finally killed the more amusement there is in it for some folks
 The folks who take their sport in this l fashion would see no fun in things 1 which other civilized human beings re- l gard as highly desirable. Their idea of
 heaven would possibly be place in
 which they would have an unlimited
 number of helpless creatures, brute or
 human, but preferably human, to tor | ment as they chose. The chances are I that if these boys could, without dan ger of punishment, have gotten hold I of smaller boy and treated him just
 as they did Pete, they would have l been still more amused m
 Tn default of anything better, how ever, Pete did very we'll But i'll the
 midst of the entertainment the watch
 man came on the scene. and he was an
 old man and fond of the dog. Strange l ly enough, he was one of the people l who fail to see fun in things of this kind. He told them to stop He was I on shore and the boys were in the | water, and they had the advantage and | lxrnxxr |, f,,v, l and presently a stone struck Pete on I the head and he began to sink The old l watchman did not stop-sto take his
 clothes off. He jumped head first into
 the river and swam toward the dog.
 His head was hit by a floating beam
 and he was stunned. Then 15-year-
 old boy, who had taken no part in the 1 previous sport, came alongg and saw l what was doing; and he 1eaped into the
 water and rescued the old oman. and
 then pulled the dog out with a boat hook. Both recovered, and the dog in-
 sisted on going where the Watchman l went. There are many persons, including | the boys, whose amusement was so |,summarily interferred with, who will 1 say that this was a good deal of fuss
 to make over dog, and that human life is worth more than that of an ami l mal Undoubtedly it is. But that is l not the question. When a fireman | risks his life to save that of crippled
 child in tenement-fire, we do not argue that he ought to weigh the worth 1 of his life with that of the child and l sit down on the sidewalk and let the
 child burn to death. It is obvious that 1 the moral value of his act of heroism 1 is worth something to the community l aside from it's direct consequence. The same is true in this case. It is un- | likely that the boys threw this little 1 dog in the water and stoned him will
 amuse themselves in just that way l again. where the watchman is,4 and
 perhaps some of them were sufficient 1 ly ashamed of themselves to refrain
 from such performances for the rest Of | their lives. A great deal of such cruelty is more thoughtlessness than
 anything else. One boy, stronger,
 more active or more vicious than the
 rest, sets the fashion and the rest join | in. The difference between different
 crowds" ''sets' or gangs of boys
 is not so much in the character of the
 rank and file as in that of their lead 1 CTS.
 At any rate, there were concerned in
 this incident two types of humanity
 the type which delights in infiicting
 pain and that which is willing to suffer
 to prevent pain being inflicted. It is likely that many of those who came to
 know about it did q little thinking
 about the desirability of allowing the
 former type to perpetuate itself It
 was q sort of object lesson which
 could hardly fail to have some effect
 The spirit which sets gang" of
 boys. egged on by two or three leading
 spirits, to torture and kill a helpless animal is very much the same as that which insists on lynch law as a sub- | stitute for justice. During the season,
 several years ago. when there was
 general hydrophobia scare in this country, great many harmless dogs were probably chased down andSkilled at one time or another because the cry
 was started by some sensation-lover l that they were mad. Among people ] who are in the habit of disregarding the rights and Sufferings of others it