July 2.
Amonosr civilized people, the cowardice of any act of cruelty to a dumb animal is so obvious that the percentage of those who would knowingly cause pain or suffering to the lower orders—if, indeed, we can say that such fag the horse and the dog are lower than ourselves—is very small, and even though there are many who shun the company of animals and profess to dislike them, they would not bebay cruelly toward them. It is this pronounced trait that all too frequently leads to totally mistaken ideas as to what constitutes either kindness or cruelty—with special reference, may we add, to the present campaign under taken in Shanghai with a view to the elimination of rabies. Let it be said, before furt gress is made, that this campa is long overdue and that the measures adopted are all too mild, The Councils of the Settlement and the Concession could have started much earlier and acted far more strictly without giving the genuine dog-lover any just cause for complaint.
Every person one meets will, if the subject be broached, @i cuss rabies and hydrophobia: usually in terms of utter sense, for there are few matters regarding which there are mo! popular fallacies. Even in this Country, where dogs are peculiar-liable to rabies and where we now the disease to be prevalent, it is extremely doubtful whether smore than a few score foreigners in Shanghai ever actually have seen a case, and they would be! mainly veterinary surgeons, policemen, or sportsmen who "spend much time in the open "country with their own dogs or reproduced with permission of th te amongst "works." If more people had actual experience of rabies, and still more of hydrophobia, they would feel little inclined to oppose any measures for suppression. A medical work speaks of hydrophobia as "this most horrible disease," and it is, and rabies in dogs is almost as horrible, To see a poor dog dying of distemper is a sadden-and depressing sight, for! there are few more pitiful objects, but a rabies or hydrophobia ease is positively appalling in its terror, There are two ways of dealing with the disease. Thanks to the wonderful discoveries of the great Louis Pasteur, it is posible to save a person from hydrophobia; and to a certain extent dogs, by inoculation such as is available in Shanghai, can be protected against rabies. Then there is muzzling and the efficacy of this has been amply proved in Great Britain. Never has there been a man more devoted to animals than he who always will be best remembered as Mr. Walter Long, a farmer and a cattle-breeder of no mean repute. There was a time when Mr. Long perhaps was the mort hated man in the whole country, when he was painted as a fiend incarnate and a cruel destroyer of people's pets, and within ten years the same people were ready to admit that no honour could be too much for him, In 1897 Bir. Long was at the Board of Agriculture and set himself to exterminate rabies by the simple process of isolating any case even slightly suspected. He enforced a muzzling order, with the direction that it should remain effective for six months after any case was reported, and he was adamant. During that period a Cruft's Champion, a gipsy's lurcher, or an old maid's pug to him were just plain dogs. If they were found on the streets unmuzzled, or if they obviously were strays, even though muzsled, the police impounded them, the owners if traced were prosecuted.and punished as heavily as the Law permitted, and any dogs not claimed within a very short time were destroyed. 'The effects were almost immediately noticeable and though, after the order was relaxed, isolated cases occurred and compelled its re-infareement, after 1902 not single case' of rabies occurred until (the writer believes) a year or two ago. Rabies is believed to be communicable by inoculation to nearly all warm-blooded creatures, even birds, but Mr. Long worked on the scarcely questionable theory that the dog pre-eminently is the vehicle of contagion and the absence of rabies in Great Britain to-day is proof of the wisdom of his action, In Shanghai, those elected by ourselves to attend to our wellbeing propose to do just what Mr. Long did. They have order. ed that all dogs must be muzzled and that rone be allowed to ray, and because there are peculiar circumstances here, with packs of disease-infected" works roaming at will, it is proposed to. organize Uattwes for the destruction of such. Sikh, Chinese or Annamite policemen, with scant knowledge of highly-bred foreign dogs, may shoot Kikusan, Rolé von Lunghua, Kafir, or Wonkia, and that would be a lamentable happening, but it would be warve li, aware of their deficiency in dog' lore and fearing to offend the foreigner, they jet all go free. It is up to the owners of good dogs to prevent them straying and to have them muzzled whenever they are taken out. Hitherto, far too.little attention has been paid to what} a necessary and beneficent regulation. Exhibitors at the local dog shows are informed in the particulars of entry that their dogs need not be muzzled when within the limits of the show-ground, but that, to satisfy the police," they must be' muzzled when being brought through the!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.