29th March.
WE are afraid that our much estecmed friend "Daybreak" hardly gave the matter the consideration it deserves when he wrote in the last issue of Sport and Gossip that he never heard of anything more ridicule ous than the Volunteers being called out to promiscuously shoot Chinese dogs, mad or not mad. There is no farce about it, as we propose to en deavour to show. We presime that "Daybreak" agrees with the Council that. it was desirable to thin out the hale-wild. dogs. that - have -become such: a@ nuisance as well as an undoubted danger on the outside roads. If rabies, which has become so prevalent of late, was to be eradicated at all, the Council were obliged to take this step; as we have written before, mothers were getting who accompanies that citizen to take afraid to take their children out, and care that he comes to no harm. Thi even grown-up men and women, not a situation with which no free man subject ordinarily to nervousness, ina free State can find fault, theo-were feeling a little uneasy. The re tically or practically.
Council, after having fully examined Of course, this is properly police into the facts of the case, came to uty, but-then soldiers as well as the conclusion that the resources at citizens, the constitutional posse their command were not sufficient to comitatus of our institutions, have to cope with the existing condition, so up police duty when the police as to restore confidence qui for any reason insufficient; and in they went to the Major C this case it would have manifestly ing, as having from his position in thrown the routine of the police out the Volunteers, and also as Presi-of gear to some thirty constables dent of the Gun Club, a good deal of to do a couple of hours' extra duty in influence with the men who shoot in the morning, especially when it is shanghai. The urally took the boast of our Volunteers that the it for granted that when the Council minute a police job gets too big for said it was necessary to destroy the police, they are here to step in the wandering dogs on the outside and see it through. roads, they had good reasons for their The man must have a remarkable statement; and allowing that in the mental twist who does not interest of the public safety the dogs ledge the benefit to the commu hal to be killed, the question w from the destruction of th how best to out the decision, ous curs and does not also a which was rather a more delicate ledge that their destruction matter than the man in the street complished in the most humane as might think, for—well as the sai The Volun-(1) The shooting had to be done teers are merely carrying out their along or in the immediate neighbour-duty in secing that the shooters come hood of roads on which there were a harm, and the shooters them-good mi nF vfarers, foreign and solve: entitled to the gratefal native; and recognition of the community for (2) There was the moral certainty turning out at five o'clock in the "that the shooters unless they were morning and undergoing an ex-under some visible protection would ceptionally unpleasant—experience, be mobbed; not that the Chinese because it was thought necessary that really cared about the lives of their they should do so in the interest of curs, indeed, it was found in some the public at large, native as well as loca ities that the natives were actu-foreign. ally glad to be rid of them, so that the statement of one small humaniwvian that every poor cur ti
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.