nd draught; doubtless
the transition to that humble condition from his present and
immemorial social elevation in less advanced countries will be slow and
characterized by bitter factional strife. America, especially, though
ever accessible to the infection of new and profitable ideas, will
be angularly slow to accept so radical a subversion of a social
superstructure that almost may be said to rest upon the domestic dog as
a basic verity.

The dogs are our only true "leisure class" (for even the tramps are
sometimes compelled to engage in such simple industries as are possible
within the "precincts" of the county jail) and we are justly proud of
them. They toil not, neither spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not
a dog. Instead of making them hewers of wood and drawers of water, it
would be more consonant with the Anglomaniacal and general Old World
spirit, now so dominant in the councils of the nation, to make them
"hereditary legislators." And Mr. Smith must permit me to add, with a
special significance, that history records an instance of even a horse
making a fairly good Consul.

Mr. Smith avers with obvious and impudent satisfaction that in Liege
twice as many draught dogs as horses are seen in the streets, attached
to vehicles. He regards "a gaily painted cart" drawn by "a well fed
dog" and driven by a well fed (and gaily painted) woman as a "pleasing
vision." I do not; I should prefer to see the dog sitting at the receipt
of steaks and chops and the lady devoting herself to the amelioration of
the condition of the universe, and the manufacture of poetry and stories
that are not true. A more pleasing vision, too, one endeared to eye and
heart by immemorial use and wont, is that of stranger and dog indulging
in the pleasures of the chase--stranger a little ahead--while the woman
in the case manifests a characteristically compassionate solicitude lest
the gentleman's trousers do not match Fido's mustache. It is, indeed,
impossible to regard with any degree of approval the degradation to
commercial utility of two so noble animals as Dog and Woman; and if Man
had joined them together by driving-reins I should hope that God would
put them asunder, even if the reins were held by Dog. There would
no doubt be a distinct gain as well as a certain artistic fitness in
unyoking the strong-minded female of our species from the Chariot of
Progress and yoking her to the apple-cart or fish-wagon, and--but that
is another st