e Horse-Riding way--stout man--game eye?" The
inquiries were successful; and I like, too, the frankly sentimental
account of the appearance of the clown's dog after his master's death,
and the dog's search for the clown's little girl:--

"We was getting up our Children in the Wood one morning, when there comes
into our Ring by the stage door a dog. He had travelled a long way, he
was in very bad condition, he was lame, and pretty well blind. He went
round to our children, one after another, as if he was a-seeking for a
child he knowd; and then he come to me, and throwed himself up behind,
and stood on his two forelegs, weak as he was, and then wagged his tail
and died."

I might doubtless give other instances of well-known men who were lovers
of dogs, {230a} but I shall refrain from further quotation. The
instincts of man are being purged of the brutality by which they are too
often characterised, and what are clumsily called dumb animals have
benefited side by side with human beings. It is not yet true that even a
merciful man is merciful to his beast, but in England, at any rate, it is
recognised that actual cruelty to animals is wrong, but even this is not
always the case among other nations. My father used to tell us how, when
his horse was exhausted, he lagged behind his S. American companion who
shouted, "Spur him! Don Carlos, spur him! he is _my_ horse," and simply
could not understand my father's motive. But I am glad to remember that
even among rough people, in uncivilised ages, a sense of humanity to
animals was not unknown. Busbecquius {230b} records that in
Constantinople an angry crowd assembled before a shop in which was
exhibited a living bird with its mouth forcibly opened to show its huge
gape.

Cruelty is often said to be the outcome of ignorance and stupidity rather
than of innate brutality. I wish I could believe this: in any case it is
an evil which must be not merely held in check but rooted out. All
lovers of animals owe a debt of gratitude to the Society for Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals, not only for their great organisation for the
prevention and punishment of brutalities, but also, and perhaps
especially, for their guidance of public opinion.

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THE END.

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