Punch (73.1877)

Decembek 15, 1877.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 267

' ' ' H'/i

MUTUAL JUDGMENTS.

Scene—A Horse Fair.

Customer " Ya-as, he mat be a Jewel, a—but you want too much foe him. He's got such ax ugly Head and Legs !
Irish Dealer. "An' faith, Sob, if the Horbse could only Spake, he'd be afthek saying as much iv yob Honour I"

suggestion of remedy was confident. Seeing that we can't cure it,
prevention, in this case pre-eminently, would be ever so much better
than cure. But how to secure prevention ? There's the rub. "We
can hardly feel satisfied with the Doctor's suggestions—a rigorous
dog-tax, a collar with the owner's name and number of his licence
—like a Special War-Correspondent—and death to any dog found
abroad without his collar!

Hard lines! to be collared for lack of collar by a stern policeman,
and consigned to the fatal fumes, which are used in New York to
quench the vital spark of the homeless, masterless dog—poor waif
and stray, who has a master somewhere, if he could only find him,
and is, nine times out of ten, more worthy of compassion and care
than of execution.

But we have a Dog-tax—and we have dog-collars, and, alas, we
have swift and sudden execution of homeless and masterless dogs—
more's the pity.

How are we, then—if these precautions are made ever so stringent
and universal—to prevent rabies ? Here we desiderate more logical
tific lucidity from our scientific Doctor.

One of the kindest, as he is one of the most cultivated of men,
reared in due love and familiarity with dogs at his patriarchal,
old-world home of Killerton, he would of a surety recommend
nothing that he did not believe called for by the emergency of the
case. And so we are forced to the conclusion that he sees no other
way for it but death for the dog without a master, or at least, the
outward and visible sign of one—a collar.

But it is a stern and a sad necessity, if necessity it be. Punch
would have been loath to believe it on any less gentle, and thought-
ful, and well-informed an authority than Dr. Acland. As it is—
Toby .... But no—thou art safe. No rabies to be feared for
thee, but the exceeding wrath aroused sometimes over the never-
ending accumulation in the waste-paper basket over which
thou keepest guard, and thy wrath at the wrongs and hum-
bugs of the world against which thou seest thy Master uplift his
baton.

So rest, rest perturbed spirit. " Requiescas in pace " in life by
thy Master's side, in death in his family grave, not far from his
heart.

A REMONSTRANCE EROM ROMSEY.

Mb.. Punch—Sik,

Tain't off en as we gets the chance of having a peg at your
Honor, but summut in your last week's peaper has give it to me.
You says that tho' we may walk to Romsey straight, we med goo
back walking zigzag like. That med be all tru enof, but you said
that seame last year. Please read. I han't got your peaper in
which it was, but I can recolect near enuf :—

" And though the rhoad to Kumsey's straight,
"Tis zigzag back from there ;
Mind that, whenever you goos to dale
In pigs at Komsey fare."

1 think the verses of which the above is one, was called " E,um
uns from Eomsey." Please zee the heading to last week's shove at
us down Romsey waiy.

I will now take the liberty of telling you where you be wrong
about us in some other respecs. Grwain to Romsey isn't by any
means sinonimus with gettin drunk ; and why ? because we've got
Musteb Cowper-Temple, and his good Lady, at Broadlands, both
on um, to their credit, workin hard to put down drinkin o' beer, and
tryin wi all thir might to pursuade us to drink nothin but water or
tea, and they have succeeded so well, that the say in " haven bin to
Romsey," if it ever were used, don't now apply to the pleace.

"Where you be most of all wrong, however, is in callinof it Romsey
on the mud. How could a place be on the mud ? Mud's mostly soft.
Besides, here's a little bit of a rime mead up afore you was born, or
me neither, and I'm older than you, as I can very well remember
your fust appearance :—

" Kumsey in the mud,

Tytherley on the stoans,
Rumsey ate the mate,
Tytherley picked the boans."

I remain, Sir,

Your most obajiant humble Servant,

A Romsey Pigdaleb.