Our contemporary the Globe has reproduced from the American papers
a legend of a canine'funeral, spontaneously celebrated in 1869 by dogs, on the death, by shooting, of the spaniel of a negro who belonged, before emancipation, to Governor Charles A. Wickliffe. The story is that this spaniel having shown symptoms of hydrophobia, he was promptly shot, whereupon all the dogs of his acquaintance, led by a large and fierce dog called "Old Bull," assembled round the body with loud howlings, and then prepared for a funeral. "Old Bull" seized the corpse and car- ried it off to the woods, dug it a grave beneath a tree, interred it, all the dogs joining to fill up the grave, and then led the mourners in a new series of elaborate howls, kept up for a quarter of an hour, after which they dispersed. The meaning of the story is plain. Clearly these things were written for a parable. The spaniel who showed symptoms of hydro- phobia—no slightsyniptorns—was the South. in his lifetime he had fawned on" Old Bull "—obviously, John Bull,—and in return Old Bull, who did nothing to save him from his death-shot, made a pompous funeral for him, and howled over his remains. The Negroes have more humour than our contemporary the Globe gives them credit for.
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