CYNOMANIA [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, —Eleven years ago
I opened an instructive controversy on the Abolition of Dogs. My suggestion was opposed with intemperate fury by the cynomaniacs, but an equal number of sensible persons advocated immediate measures of discipline or reform. Since 1928 something has been done, in the way of district legislation and otherwise, to impress upon the dog- owner the nature of his duty to his fellow-men. But these efforts can only procure, at most, a partial or local improve- ment. Let us consider the general situation.
Apart from the care of sheep and occasionally of houses, the dog has no justified existence. The racing or sporting dog is a conspicuous instrument of national corruption. The ordinary domestic dog is noisy, insanitary, unreliable, and a creature of indescribably nauseating habits. He consumes, each year, thousands of tons of high-quality foodstuff which can ill be spared, and he extorts from the half-witted enormous amounts of money for his "protection." In the case of women he is frequently the origin or centre of a well-known psychosis, the consequences of which are lamentable in the extreme. He produces in men a condition of retrograde sentimentality. Upon the road he is often a cause of death or disablement. He befouls our public footways and he terrifies our children. We can only account for his continued existence by postulating a
strange element of stupidity or depravity among our people. Now is the time for a fresh appeal or protest. Any national emergency, any progress in social reform, will entail measures for the proper control and eventual abolition of dogs. Let us anticipate those measures by insisting at least upon the ordi- nary standard of decency and of common sense which even a cynomaniac is ready to observe in his normal behaviour.— Yours faithfully, C. E. VULLIAMY. Glasbury House, Glasbury, Hereford.
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