Page:Under the Sun.djvu/276

252, how many dogs keep men and how many of them support old ladies, the philosopher would seem to have some basis for his fanciful theory that, but for dogs, men would still have been shepherds, and human society still in its patriarchal stage. The Red Indians keep no dogs; and what is the result? AH their time is given up to dog’s work, and they lead a dog’s life doing it — chasing wild things about and holloaing after them. Other peoples, however, who started with them in the race of nations, and who utilized the dog, are now enjoying all the comforts of nineteenth-century civilization, hunting only for amusement and shepherding only on valentines.

Writers on the dog claim for it the noblest attributes of humauity, and share with it our meanest failings; and, although the vast majority of instances of canine mind may be classified under the phenomena of selfinterest and imitation, it is humiliating to feel that, if the dogs were to give their opinions of men, the same classification would hold good, and that for each of their own weaknesses they could cite a parallel among men.

At present, as the matter stands, man seems in some danger of being reckoned only the second best of animals.

In a dispassionate view of the subject, however, the foibles of the dog should not be, as they so often are, overlooked.

Indeed, it might be well if some one would compile a counterblast of remarkable instances of the intelligence and docility of man, the human Trustys and good Dog Trays that abound in the world; the men who have been known to lose their friends in the streets and to