The Temporary- Home for Lost and Stray Dogs at Holloway
was wantonly and cruelly pointed out the other day by the Pall Mall Gazette as a proper object for the descent of the taxgatherer, with demands for 12s. for each canine inmate during the last year, —which would come to upwards of 1,0001. for one year's arrears, as 2,000 dogs have been received within its hospitable walls in that period. The managers of the institution (which is very poor), however, have reason, we believe, to hope for more for- bearance from the Government than from the nnsocyne in the Pall Mall Gazette. They have presented their case in touching and forcible language. First, they say, they clear the streets of canine vagrants, and afford them "a temporary refuge from violence, cold, and starvation." Next, they provide owners of lost dogs with a better chance of recovering them ; lastly, and most important of all,—we use their own words,—they find out "a permanent home and sphere of usefulness for creatures which had wandered or been driven from proper conditions of existence." There is great wisdom in taking this high ground, from which no one can drive them. What dogs want is, unquestionably, "a sphere of. usefulness" and "proper conditions of existence," and we only regret sincerely to find that but 25 per cent. of the dogs received into the temporary refuge find that sphere and those con- ditions,—the remainder being put to a "painless death." Still, 25 per cent. is a fair remnant snatched from destruction. "If this institution is closed," says the secretary eloquently, "one naturally shudders when reflecting upon the wretchedness of their [the doge] condition, and on the demoralization of boys and ignorant persons," — like the writer in the Pall Mall Gazette, which will follow." Mr. Hunt, we are sure, will not enforce the tax and stop this little instalment of human charity towards the highest subordinate races of our fellow-creatures. But if he does, may vengeance overtake the Pall Mall wanton, in the shape of a bite from some of these unhappy canine casuals, driven into violence by the " want of a sphere of usefulness and proper con- ditions of existence."
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