[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Dr. Munthe in The
Story of San Michele, speaks about the least painful death for dogs which possibly might apply to foxes and other animals kept and killed for their furs He says : " Do not send him (the dog) to the lethal chamber or ask your kindhearted doctor to sec that he is given a painless death under an anaesthetic."
" It is not a painless death, it is a distressing death. Dogs often resist the deadly effect of these gases and drugs in the most heartrending way. The dose which would kill a full- grown man often leaves a dog alive for long minutes of mental and bodily suffering. I have been present several times at these massacres in lethal chambers, and I have myself killed many dogs under anaesthetics, and I know what I am talking about. I shall never do it again. Ask any man you can trust, who is fond of dogs (this condition is necessary), to take your old dog in the park, to give him a bone and while he is eating it to shoot him with a revolver through the ear. It is an instantaneous and painless death, life is extinguished like the candle you blow out. Many of my old dogs have died so by my own hand."—I am, Sir, &c., H. M. P.
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