can be taxed, but we all know that a dog is not property, any more than
is a boy's pet rabbit, or a child, for that matter. A dog is a member of
his master's family. He has connection with his heart, not with his
pocket. He is a creature to love and be loved by, and not to be bought
and sold like a bit of land or a yoke of oxen, and any law aimed at the
affections is an offence to the holiest impulses of the bosom, and as
such should be resented.

Yes, the law was a bad one. I did what I could to defeat it in its
passage, and I broke it all I could after its passage, and that was some
satisfaction to my feelings, which were in fact outraged by it; for I
saw not only the injustice of it, as viewed in the light of correct
principle, but that it would bear heavily upon the poor, and bring
sorrow like the sorrow of death itself into families. I saw, moreover,
that it was a cruel law in its relation to children, whose pretty and
harmless pets and playmates could be murdered before their very eyes.
Many a sad case did I hear of, the winter after the law was passed, but
the saddest of all was that of my old friend, who was living peacefully
and happily with his dog in the little house I had hired for him.

[Illustration: _He was teaching the dog a new trick._]

He was sitting one evening in the comfortable quarters I had provided
for him, playing with his companion and teaching him some new tricks to
practise against my return, happy as he might be, when a loud rap was
delivered upon his door, and at the same instant it was pushed rudely
open, and a man walked into the room and, without pausing to give or
receive a greeting, pointed to the dog, and said:

"Is that your property, sir?"