On Monday a curious application was made to Mr. Corrie,
at Bow Street, by a Mr. Bishop, of New Bond Street, for a summons against a lady named Hicks for causing his dog to be cruelly destroyed. About a week previously Mr. Bishop left the dog in a cab, with strict orders to the cabman to watch it. The cabman probably preferred a neighbouring pot-house to his dog-watch, for the dog escaped, and Miss Hicks seeing it panting in Gray's Inn Square, gave a man sixpence to destroy it. Miss Hicks seems to have made the same kindly investment on previous occasions, having pro- bably a chronic horror of possible canine lunatics. The man tried to hang the dog, and knocked it on the head, which, said Mr. Bishop, was "the most terrible blow ever in- flicted on me and my family." Mr. Conic) ques- tioned the motive of cruelty m the lady, on which Mr. Bishop began to rave in a way that would probably have induced Miss Hicks to offer the man another sixpence to destroy the dog's master. " Cruelty ! Was it not cruelty to me, to my niece, to all my family ? The dog was my life, my wife's life, and my niece's life. It has broken up our peace and happiness at home. We would not have parted with the dog for half a million of money. Is a woman to go unpun- ished for deliberately killing an innocent, beautiful, harmless dog ?" Mr. Bishop finding that "cruelty to animals" would not include cruelty to himself, his wife, and niece, a thought struck him that he might charge Miss Hicks with " felony " for stealing the dog. Mr. Corrie, however, not falling in readily with this wild suggestion, the vendetta between Mr. Bishop and Miss Hicks continues unappeased. The lady is connected with a Dogs' Home, the officers of which very properly repudiate her conduct. Probably this private ruthlessness to dogs is a sort of reaction against over- strained official benignity.
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