The Newcastle Journal of Monday reports a pathetic story of
a dog, given in evidence before the Gateshead Magistrates. A man over eighty, charged with keeping a dog without a licence, did not appear, but the chief-constable informed the Bench "that the old man had been at the Court in a terrible state of distress," and that he lived with his wife in a con- dition of abject poverty. On inquiries being made, it appeared that the dog must be destroyed if the summons was pressed, as the old couple had no money to pay for a licence, but that the wife had begged for the dog's life because it had more than once saved her from being burnt to death. She had fallen into the fire in a fit, and "the dog had seized her, dragged her from the flames, and, burying his nose in her lighted clothes, had extinguished the fire. To prove the truth of the woman's statement the chief-constable got some old newspapers and set fire to them, this being done in the presence of other constables. On each occasion, the news- paper was lighted in. the middle of the floor. The dog rushed at it and extinguished the flame." The Magistrates, of course, subscribed to pay for what the local reporter, with pardonable effusiveness, calls the "noble creature's licence." It is a pity that the dog's breed, or, at any rate, size and look, are not mentioned.
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