• CLEVER LONDON ANIMALS.
"L'IXCEPT for the tribute always paid to the cleverness of _12J blind men's dogs, nearly all the credit for sense or sagacity among animals goes to those bred and kept in the country. It might be thought, from the scarcity of anecdotes or records about them, that London animals were inferior in brains to their country cousins. That this is a mistake is not difficult to prove. The following notes of some instances to the contrary may be cited.
Some years ago a foot passenger was going home rather late at night, taking a short cut through a poor neighbourhood. He was met in the moonlight by a large black retriever, which proceeded to make itself extremely friendly. It barked in a cheerful manner, and then trotted up a side passage, evidently wishing to be followed. As it was not, it ran back, took its new acquaintance's band in its month, and gently drew him towards the passage. The human partner in this dumb dialogue was not quick enough to gather its meaning, but imagined that it wanted to carry I his glove, which he let it take hold of. The dog promptly snatched this out of his band, and then, wagging his tail, and turning his head round, trotted off with the glove, apparently certain that he would be followed. He only went a few yards, and then came to a door leading into a yard. He then began to scratch at the door, which was really a double gate to the yard. The latch was tried, and it was found to be unlocked, and the gate being opened, the dog instantly ran in. The name on the gate was that of a butcher
in a street near by, and inquiries next day showed that the dog had been out late, and had consequently been shut out, with the result that he had induced a perfect stranger to come and let him in.
Among the artificial conditions of dog-life in London is the fact that by a regular old Cockney custom they are often partly fed on the carefully roasted horse-meat pre- pared by the professors of that ancient side industry. They know exactly the hour at which this individual ought to be coming in their direction, and often go a street or two on the way to join him, walking by his side in a friendly way to their own door or mews, and seeing the provisions delivered with all the satisfaction of good housekeepers superintending the bringing in and weighing of a Sun- day joint. As most people know, dogs are particularly
fond of the parings of horses' hoofs which lie about in blacksmiths' shoeing-sheds. Landseer shows one of his dogs eating this coveted morsel in his picture of the "Smithy." London blacksmiths' shops nearly always lie out of sight of main streets (there is one just behind Piccadilly, off Little Stanhope Street). " Swell " horses are generally "waited on" In their stables, and shod there ; but poor people's horses, small tradesmen's van horses and the like, go regularly to the smithies to be shod. There the dogs go too, to get these highly prized bits of horse-hoof, and they may be seen com- placently eating them at all times of the day. There is one smithy close to the Broadway at Hammersmith, not very far from Hammersmith Bridge, where a great number of market gardeners' and greengrocers' horses are shod. Many of these have gone to the old smithy to be shod for a dozen years, and may be seen walking in and waiting their turn like customers at a hairdresser's waiting for a shampoo. One of the cleverest spaniels which any one could desire to meet was a thorough Cockney dog, parlour-trained in a suburban villa. He was a very unamia.ble dog, with hardly any friends, but he had great accomplishments. One was that of diving and fetching things out from under the water. He first learnt to draw objects from the bottom of a pail, and later would dive and fetch stones thrown into the river where it was reasonably shallow. He was a capital hand at finding hidden objects of any kind, and absolutely obedient to his owner, but his field of activity was limited. When quite eight years old he was taken into the country and out partridge shooting. He soon became a very useful retriever, being quite under control, and after he once got over the thoroughly Cockney suspicion that some one was making game of him, and that he would be laughed at, he became quite keen.
Dog and horse friendships are quite common in London, from the smart carriage dogs and barouche horses (now not often seen) in the Park to the dogs and ponies or van horses of the shopkeepers. There is one small general shop where three light vans come to be filled up with the morning's orders, one after another. The family dog, a collie, always goes with one of these horses on his round, and may be seen lying on the step, in the attitude of Landseer's lions, waiting for his particular horse to come. When he sees him, he jumps up and gives a bark or two, and fusses round while the van is being loaded, in quite a different fashion from his indifferent attitude previously. These people are very kind to all their animals. Each horse has a large piece of bread, or very often a whole handful of sweet biscuits, given him when he comes, and they are so eager to get this that they sometimes come on to the footpath, up to the door-step, and block the pavement ; but no one minds. The milk-cart ponies will often do their round almost without telling, walking on to the different doors where they know they have to stop. In a district close to the river, by the side of a creek up which barges come to unload, is a costem' colony.. Their donkeys
and small ponies are kept in the back-yards, and are always led, or allowed to walk, right through the passage of the house. The coster's pony sometimes enjoys a certain share in the advantages of the house. A very old and white pony, quite small, was lately seen being clipped by the coster owner
in the passage, probably because there was a cold wind blowing outside. As the passage was narrow, the man was sitting on the staircase clipping away at his ease, and the passage was fall of the white hair of the old pony.
The extraordinary obedience of the London horses is well known. When taken from the omnibuses to drag the guns in South Africa they faced the shells and explosions as patiently and courageously as if it were all in the usual day's work, The object of the London driver being to drill his horse, its virtues are mainly those of passive obedience. But they also gain a self-control which is entirely foreign to the very nervous nature of horses. They learn not to fear any degree of noise and crowding, and to avoid treading on persons who may fall before their feet in the streets. The horses of the Life Guards, like the Guards themselves, are thorough Londoners, and so much at home in a crowd, and so gentle, that when the Household Cavalry have to "keep the streets" the horses never cause an accident. London contractors' horses are taught when drawing trucks of earth to a "tipping place" to leave the line sideways, while at the same moment the truck is detached and run on by its own momentum till it hits a "tipping block" and capsizes its contents 'over the edge of the heap. This is very quick and difficult work for a nervous creature like a horse, and is done very promptly and cleverly.
It is said that if the freedom of London is conferred on a distinguished person, the freeman gains, among other privileges, the right to keep pigs in the parish of St. James's, Piccadilly; but this may be obsolete. The demean. our of a London pig would probably be more independent than that of a London goat, one of which class for many years bore himself in Piccadilly with an air which was strictly in keeping with that of other distinguished frequenters of that aristocratic thoroughfare.
The London manners and country manners of the birds are very noticeable. The wild wood-pigeons will occur to every one as exhibiting a curious contrast. But it will take many generations for the wood-pigeons to learn the habitual mix- ture of tameness in regard to men and care in respect of traffic which the tame birds show. There is a small coterie of tame pigeons which live in St. James's Street, and derive most of their living from stray oats dropped from the cab- stand at the top of the street. These pigeons will feed in the middle of the traffic, and do so with such a keen perception of distances that they will continue to peek at the grain within two feet of the wheels of a passing cab. The wood-pigeons do not yet trust themselves to the streets, and several have been killed at different times by being trodden on by the feet of horses in the Row, where they wander about in a somewhat reckless manner.
There was a sheep-dog in London until a year or so ago which used twice a week to assist at a curious ceremony. He belonged to a butcher who rented a small field a little outside town, from which he used on certain days to have a small flock of about a dozen sheep driven in, as an osten- tatious advertisement that he "killed his own mutton." It was always said that he was not really so unkind, and that at night the dog, aided by one of the men, always drove some of them back again, gilently and without tap of dram, so to speak. It was also teported that these sheep became so used to the journey that they would have found their way alone ; but this was, no doubt, a piece of local wit.
When horses or dogs come up from the country, they are instantly detected by Cockneys as being strangers to the streets. A little urchin in Knightsbridge was heard to shout out to another : "'Ere, Billy, 'ere's a country 'arse; let's 'umbag 'im." It was a country horse, or rather two, standing in a waggon which had come in from Surrey with a load of straw.
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