those
courtly commoners Anne Buller and her brothers, had been swept away with
all the other cumbering antiquities.

Sir Robert is now looking into the military, monastic, and baronial
architecture of the mediaeval period on the Continent, and goes next year
to Japan to begin the exhaustive researches which are to culminate in
his next book, the "Lives of the Mikados."

F. C. BAYLOR.

[THE END.]

THE TRUTH ABOUT DOGS.

I am about to do a very unpopular thing,--namely, to write realistically
about the dog and to protest mildly against the extravagant and
sentimental way of writing about him which has become so fashionable and
which threatens to make him a veritable fetich. The intolerance of his
worshippers has already attained a height of dogmatism (the pun is
hardly a conscious one) which is truly theologic. I have been made
aware, when expressing dissent or a low measure of faith, of an
ill-concealed scorn, such as curls the lip of a Boston liberal or lights
the eye of a "Hard-Shell" or a Covenanter when any one ventures to
differ from him.

The theory is gravely advanced of a dog heaven,--not confined to the
poor Indian, whose paradise consists of happy hunting-grounds, where, of
course, he will need his faithful hound to keep him company. The main
argument of white men is generally found to be the superiority of canine
virtue over the human. Whether the word "cynic" originates from a
similar source I will not undertake to say; but I have more than half a
suspicion that such talk proceeds rather from a prejudice against men
than a genuine enthusiasm for dogs. This was doubtless the feeling of
the Frenchman who said, "_Plus je connais l'homme, plus je prefere le
chien._" As to any argument drawn from the need of compensation
elsewhere for privation endured on earth, however it might hold
concerning the ancient dog, there is no foundation for the claim now;
for verily the modern dog hath his portion in this life,--and a double
one, too.

I am impelled by no fanatical zeal, and have no creed or cult of my own
to vindicate. I am influenced only by a noble love of truth and a
sublime sense of duty in arraying myself with the despised
minority,--perhaps I may say by a sense of fair play for the "under
dog." I do not ask the _kynolatrist_ to "call off his dogs" altogether:
I merely ask him to allow those who do not share his enthusiasm to pass
by on the other side without his setting the dogs upon them