Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/282

272 find no such difference between them, as those ill disposed people allege. On the contrary, he assured me, that much the greater number of narrow cavities, were of Hibernian origin. This I only mention, to show how ready the jacobites are, to lay hold of any handle, to express their malice against the government. I had almost forgot to add, that my friend the physician, could, by smelling each finger, distinguish the Hibernian excrement from the British, and was not above twice mistaken, in a hundred experiments; upon which he intends very soon to publish a learned dissertation.

There is a diversion in this city, which usually begins among the butchers, but is often continued by a succession of other people, through many streets; it is called the COSSING of a dog: and I may justly number it among our corruptions. The ceremony is thus: a strange dog happens to pass through a flesh market; whereupon an expert butcher immediately cries in a loud voice, and the proper tone, coss, coss, several times. The same word is repeated by the people. The dog, who perfectly understands the terms of art, and consequently the danger he is in, immediately flies. The people, and even his own brother animals, pursue: the pursuit and cry attend him perhaps half a mile; he is well worried in his flight, and sometimes hardly escapes. This our ill wishers of the jacobite kind are pleased to call a persecution; and affirm, that it always falls upon dogs of the tory principle. But we can well defend ourselves, by justly alleging, that when they were uppermost, they treated our dogs full as inhumanly. As to my own part, who have in former times often attended these processions, though