A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
MR. GARVIN'S dog provided some welcome relief on Sunday in the midst of the statutory three columns devoted to, the vindication of Signor Mussolini's pro- claimed intention to rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend and wage a war which he had promised to renounce. Let me recall him.
" Compare fire and war," wrote the Editor of The Observer. " When fire breaks out—say in one house of a street or in one part of a heath—you do not seek to spread it, if you cannot at once quench it where it is. That is not only an instinct of reason among us humans, such as we are. We ourselves know a dog who gravely puts out any cigarette still burning which a negligent smoker may drop on the floor."
Such sagacity on the part of dumb animals is worthy of record in any context. We ourselves know (as Mr. Garvin would put it), a cat which, having discovered a warm and sheltered spot in which to bring her impending family into the world, forthwith abandoned it on observ- ing the notice " No litter " posted up hard by—an exam- ple of respect for law whose bearing on the international situation is at once apparent. * * *
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