Year: 1871

West End of London. OF course the
alarm and excitement spread, and a
crowd of men and boys followed it. A
butcher was standing at the door of his
shop when the rabid beast entered the
street, and the man as he stood there was
right in the track. The crowd shouted to
him to get out of the way; but in lieu of
doing so, the butcher coolly detached his
steel l"-an implement with which every
reader is familiar in the larger size which
it takes when for professional and not do
mestic use-from his apron, and planted
himself in the center of the pathway.
Swapping viciously, with whitened jaws,
at everything near, the dog came on, and
when close to the butcher, sprang at him
to seize him; but as he opened his savage
teeth the man stepped forward, and, hold
ing his weapon with firm grip, drove
the steel right down the brute's throat al
most to the hilt His fingers were, of
course, close to the fatal fangs; but these
were harmless now, for the dog fell dead
at his feet. There are many men who
would rather have faced line of bayonets
than have done such deed as this; and
many a man has been praised to the skies
and rewarded for less courageous act.


Without breaking my resolution of not
entering upon the medical questions con-
utCtCO w I'LL LAY 1OhAOOio, AldJ W
the agonizing uncertainty which haunts a
person who is bitten by mad dog. Of
all poisons ever known the virus is the
most capricious, most unaccountable in its
actions. The blood-poison, to which it is
mos. often compared-the bite of ser
pent--is really more of contrast than a
comparison; the one is so certain and
regular in it's effect, the other so uncertain
in time, or even in any injury resulting at
all. None of the men bitten by Sir T. F.
Buxton's dog ever went mad. have
known child arm torn and bitten to the
bone by dog outrageously rabid, and the
child did not suffer any more than it
would have done from any other injury of
equal extent. There have been frequent
instances of where a dog has bitten great
number of human beings, and one has
gone mad while the rest have escaped on
the other hand, have also known very
slight puncture from dog not suspected
to be rabid, bring on the most deadly mad
ness. The treatment of hydrophobia is
just as unsettled as the disease itself. A
surgeon once treated very bad bite on
any rate, was infuriated, which not only
presented some very ugly symptoms, but
menaced, fancied, the worst results. He
used water only; he kept constantly
saturated pad of linen on the bite, and he
got quite well. But the value of such ev-
idence as this is diminished by its being
impossible to say whether hydrophobia
would have set in if the wound had been
left to itself.


AS rule, a mad dog will not 60 out of
its way to bite you. 1t is rarely so fero-
cious as in the second of my instances, but
it pursues q straight course, swapping at
every living object which it meets. A
friend of mine once passed, on lonely
country road, within a few feet of dog
which struck him as having something
strange in its aspect and movements; fifty
yards further on he encountered two men
with guns, who asked him if he had seen
dog, and on being nswered that he had,
and where, told him to thank God for his
escape, for that very brute was raving mad,
and had bitten at east a dozen animals
and two or three men and children that
morning. My informant almost tainted
with the shock which this intelligence
communicated, and was greatly relieved to
hear the report of a gun directly after
ward, telling that the career of the mad
dog was ended. spoke, at the commence
ment of this brief article, of the effect
produced by the clearance of the street
from dogs by the police; most of my read
ers will remember how that one man in
the force, especially, had his hands cover
ed all over with wounds from bites, and in
lesser degree this was common among
the men; yet-and this adds to the per


picking nature of the subject-not one of
the force suffered from hydrophobia; nor,
1 believe, has any attendant at that most
useful institution, the Home for Lost and
Starving Dogs, ever been attacked. 1t is
really like the immunity doctors enjoy, as
rule, from contagion in fevers and other
pestilences, and is altogether out of my
power to explain. Finally, I will observe
that never knew the madness of a dog to
be clearly traceable to want of water.
Popular opinion, 1 know, ascribes it al
ways to this privation; but so far asI have
had an opportunity of noticing, thirst alone
never causes the disease.-Ha1psrs Weekly