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A BOYS' DOG.
As I lift my eyes from the paper, I observe a dog
lying on the steps of the opposite house. His attitude
might induce passers-by and casual observers to
believe him to belong to the people who live there,
and to accord to him a certain standing position. I
have seen visitors pat him, under the impression that
they were doing an act of courtesy to his master—he
lending himself to the fraud by hypocritical contortions
of the body. But his attitude is one of deceit
and simulation. He has neither master nor habitation.
He is a very Pariah and outcast; in brief “A
Boys' Dog.”
There is a degree of hopeless and irreclaimable
vagabondage expressed in this epithet, which may
not be generally understood. Only those who are
familiar with the roving nature and predatory instincts
of boys in large cities will appreciate its strength. It
is the lowest step in the social scale to which a respectable
canine can descend. A blind man's dog,
or the companion of a knife-grinder, is comparatively
elevated. He at least owes allegiance to but one
master. But the Boys' Dog is the thrall of an entire
of the smallest imp in the neighborhood, attached to
and serving not the individual boy so much as the
boy element and principle. In their active sports—
in small thefts, raids into back-yards, window-breaking
and other minor juvenile recreations—he is a full
participant. In this way he is the reflection of
the wickedness of many masters, without possessing
the virtues or peculiarities of any particular one.
If leading a “dog's life” be considered a peculiar
phase of human misery, the life of a Boys' dog is
still more infelicitous. He is associated in all
schemes of wrong-doing, and unless he be a dog of
experience, is always the scape-goat. He never
shares the booty of his associates. In absence of
legitimate amusement, he is considered fair game for
his companions; and I have seen him reduced to the
ignominy of having a tin kettle tied to his tail. His
ears and tail have generally been docked to suit the
caprice of the unholy band of which he is a member;
and if he has any spunk, he is invariably pitted
against larger dogs in mortal combat. He is poorly
fed and hourly abused; the reputation of his associates
debars him from outside sympathies; and once
a Boys' dog, he cannot change his condition. He is
not unfrequently sold into slavery by his inhumam
companions. I remember once to have been accosted
on my own doorsteps by a couple of precocious
youths, who offered to sell me a dog which they
were then leading by a rope. The price was extremely
moderate, being, if I remember rightly, but
have lately fallen into their wicked hands, and anxious
to reclaim him from the degradation of becoming
a Boys' dog, I was about to conclude the bargain,
when I saw a look of intelligence pass between
the dog and his two masters. I promptly stopped
all negotiation, and drove the youthful swindlers and
their four-footed accomplice from my presence. The
whole thing was perfectly plain. The dog was an
old, experienced, and hardened Boys' dog, and I was
perfectly satisfied that he would run away and rejoin
his old companions at the first opportunity.
This I afterwards learned he did, on the occasion of
a kind-hearted but unsophisticated neighbor buying
him: and a few days ago I saw him exposed for sale
by those two Arcadians, in another neighborhood,
having been bought and paid for half-a-dozen times in
this.
But, it will be asked, if the life of a Boys' dog is
so unhappy, why do they enter upon such an unenviable
situation, and why do they not dissolve the partnership
when it becomes unpleasant? I will confess
that I have been often puzzled by this question. For
some time I could not make up my mind whether
their unholy alliance was the result of the influence
of the dog on the boy, or vice versa, and which was
the weakest and most impressible nature. I am satisfied
now that, at first, the dog is undoubtedly influenced
by the boy, and, as it were, is led, while yet a
puppy, from the paths of canine rectitude by artful
and designing boys. As he grows older and more
becomes a willing decoy, and takes delight in leading
boyish innocence astray—in beguiling children
to play truant, and thus revenges his own degradation
on the boy nature generally. It is in this relation,
and in regard to certain unhallowed practices I
have detected him in, that I deem it proper to expose
to parents and guardians the danger to which their
offspring are exposed by the Boys' dog.
The Boys' dog lays his plans artfully. He begins
to influence the youthful mind by suggestions of unrestrained
freedom and frolic which he offers in his
own person. He will lie in wait at the garden gate
for a very small boy, and endeavor to lure him outside
its sacred precincts, by gambolling and jumping
a little beyond the inclosure. He will set off on an
imaginary chase and run around the block in a
perfectly frantic manner, and then return, breathless,
to his former position, with a look as of one who
would say, “There, you see how perfectly easy it's
done!” Should the unhappy infant find it difficult
to resist the effect which this glimpse of the area of
freedom produces, and step beyond the gate, from
that moment he is utterly demoralized. The Boys'
dog owns him body and soul. Straightway he is led
by the deceitful brute into the unhallowed circle of
his Bohemian masters. Sometimes the unfortunate
boy, if he be very small, turns up eventually at the
station-house as a lost child. Whenever I meet a
stray boy in the street looking utterly bewildered
and astonished, I generally find a Boys' dog lurking
lost children, I always add mentally to the description,
“was last seen in company with a Boys' dog.”
Nor is his influence wholly confined to small boys.
I have seen him waiting patiently for larger boys
on the way to school, and by artful and sophistical
practices inducing them to play truant. I have seen
him lying at the school-house door, with the intention
of enticing the children on their way home to
distant and remote localities. He has led many an
unsuspecting boy to the wharves and quays by assuming
the character of a water-dog, which he was not,
and again has induced others to go with him on a
gunning excursion by pretending to be a sporting
dog, in which quality he was knowingly deficient.
Unscrupulous, hypocritical and deceitful, he has won
many children's hearts by answering to any name
they might call him, attaching himself to their persons
until they got into trouble, and deserting them
at the very moment they most needed his assistance.
I have seen him rob small school-boys of their dinners
by pretending to knock them down by accident;
and have seen larger boys in turn dispossess him of
his ill-gotten booty, for their own private gratification.
From being a tool, he has grown to be an accomplice—through
much imposition he has learned
to impose on others—in his best character he is simply
a vagabond's vagabond.
I could find it in my heart to pity him, as he lies
there through the long summer afternoon, enjoying
brief intervals of tranquillity and rest which he
For a shrill whistle is heard in the streets, the boys
are coming home from school, and he is startled from
his dreams by a deftly-thrown potato which hits him
on the head, and awakens him to the stern reality
that he is now and forever—a Boys' dog.
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