NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1194, 18 January 1895, Page 26

NOTES.

By Fancier.

I have received from the Stockkeeper Company the first issue of an excellent little magazine entitled Bogs. As its name indicates, it is a journal entirely devoted to the canine fancy. In its introductory article it says : —“ There is hardly a home in England where the name of this journal will not awaken feelings of sympathy, for from the occupants of the stately mansion to the inmates of the homely cottage they all love dogs.”

Bogs, which has six pages of excellently compiled reading matter and a very good engraving on the cover, is published at a penny a week. I hope that it will have a good circulation in this Colony as well as in the Old Country.

Fox-terrier fanciers are anxiously waiting to hear what Mr Redmond will send Mr R. Triggs from England. Mr Triggs sent an open order to Mr Redmond, so something particularly good may be expected.

It is much regretted by fanciers here that the New Zealand Fancier has, after two issues, apparently died. It was a paper that could have been of great help to the fancy, and it is a great pity the proprietors did not try and nurse it through its infancy.

A rumour has reached me that the Nelson Dog Show will probably be held next March. If this is correct it is about time for the Nelsonians to begin to put things in training. March would be a very good month. I have already heard of several collies that will be entered from 'Wellington. The secretary will no doubt send the Mail schedules as soon as they are issued.

In his recently published memories, Dean Hole, in one of his best stories, points out a new sphere of usefulness for members of the canine creation. The story relates to tedious preachers, with whom he had no sympathy, as the following indicates: — “ One of these tedious preachers went away for his holidays, and the clergyman who took his duties in his absence apologised one Sunday to the clerk in the vestry, when the services were over, for the shortness of the sermon; a dog* had been in his study and torn out some of the pages. ‘ Oh, sir/ said the clerk, a bright beam of hope on his countenance, f do you. think you could spare our vicar a pup . '

As all dog-owners know, there is a bridle under the tongue of a dog containing a nerve, which, when extracted, curls up by contraction, and presents something of the appearance' of a worm. The removal of this nerve is not a very serious or excruciatingly painful operation, but it is barbarous all the. same, as all other unnecessary mutilations of domestic animals undoubtedly are. The condition of mind under which a person labours who believes that the extraction of a nerve from under the tongue will guard a dog against rabies, and that the nerve itself is a worm because it contracts when drawn out, is so contemptible as to be unworthy of consideration, only we should like to know why those who practise the cruelty of worming do not have the bridles of their own tongues mutilated as well as thoo© of their dogs in order to prevent their going mad. We are convinced that they are more in danger than the poor animals which they make suffer through their imbecility and ignorance.— Stock-keeper.

We came across an expression the other day, writes the Stoch-Tceejper, in an evening contemporary which we do not remember to have seen before. In announcing the return of Mr James Alexander to the St. James' Theatre next Saturday, with the revival of his most successful play, “ The Misqu-nalers/' and with a new Itvzr de ridea/u, entitled “Gentleman Jim," by Mr Walker, it says, with reference to this latter piece, that it “ has already been ‘ tried on the dog/ having been played in the provinces by Mr Alexander's company." Perhaps some of our theatrical readers will enlighten us on the derivation and application of this expression. We have heard of ambitious dramas “ going to the dogs."

fc5 vr ~—s ~ y s a > but never of being- “ tried on the dog-/’ Is this, perhaps, another way of alluding to the “ gay dogs ” who sit in the stalls.

Much indignation has been caused, in Jolinsonville and the neighbourhood by the fact that several valuable dogs have been poisoned.