Year: 1876

It was q little, narrow back streetin Tue son, and the hour was high noon. The sun had reached It's meridian and even on this a winters day, in this lower latitude, the sun was and had been for parts of the days very warm. There were many chill dren in the street, the place was closely built up with houses, and in the middle of the street their laid a dog. This latter was an ordinary circumstance, other things be- ingequal, for if there IS any one thing that a dog can do better than other things, it is lying down in the middle Of street. Tn no better way is proficiency from practice shown, than by the ease with which dog will perform this feat. Especially when he feels well and throws his whole soul into 1t. He is pretty good at bowling in the night, ifany one is sick or sleepless in the neighborhood, and the dog can find out that his bowling has due effect. He is not by any means bad on bone, and If he has any insight into human nature and can, without too much fatigue, find a poor Papago woman with more than an avar-

 

 tlce to his qualities in worrying her. But he never strikes his true mission in life except when lying down in street. Nevertheless the dog We have in v:ew was worthy of more than n passing notice, for he was like Lazarus,-he was dead. He was farther like Lazarus, for he had evil dently been dead three days, and he con- pleted his resem blance to Lazarus in that he sunk most decidedly. The effiuvIum from his poor, torn, mained, rotten worm- eaten carcass, penetrated and permeated and made noisome and pestiential the air by which the men, women and chil- dren, in the vicinity. lived, moved and had their being.

 We are not finding fault With the dog for stinking. He must needs have been a very poor dog to have done anything else under the circumstances. But why was the body left there 10 pollute and defile the air. Why was it not taken by the city scavengers and dumped in the arroyo, north Of town, and close to the main road, so that every stranger coming into Tucson could get such a dose or smells upon the verge, that he could not possibly be dis couraged or made sick by any subsequent experience In our midst? Suppose the city scavengers were engaged with weight fer matters, there were men standing around the houses, in the vicinity Of this dead dog, who had evidently had nothing tO do in a long time. Suppose they didn't want 10 be seen carrying off the dog, for fear some one would think they had stol- en il. Couldn't they have gone at night, and tying q rope to it's tail, have pulled it of a few blocks to where the delicate Miss Sllnpsy lives, and then by little extra effort, have lodged IL upon her house roof? Were there not neighbors, wells in the vi- cinity, into which 1t could be thrown? Could it not have been dragged al night to Smiths door, and left for him to fall over and grapple with when he came home late from his cups? Could iJ not have been taken in the dead Of night to some butcher shop, and hung upon one of the door meat hooks. and by its ultimate effects have driven the butcher Into a nun nery? Could it not have been put In pick le at the proper time, and subsequently, soo,hed us in the guise Of pigs feet? But the domain Of Ofthought opens out st the very threshhold ofthese inquiries into such limitless vistas. that We pause.