images of their Lares, or household gods, in
dog-skin. In the present day, even the very
smallest dogs are to be found cherished as
household deities.

Gunar, a Swedish tyrant, once upon a
time, to inflict shame on his subjects, set a dog
over them to be their king, and gave the dog
bad ministers, in order that the public might
be well plagued in his name. It also
hap-pened that when the people of Drontheim
had slain the son of Oisten, Prince of Upland,
Oisten bade them choose whether they would
have for their king his slave Taxe, or his dog
Saer. The Drontheimers chose to be ruled by
Saer the First, because they hoped to make a
good dog of him, and to enjoy much liberty
under his chain. Saer had not long been
seated on the throne before he was enchanted
by his subjects, and became the wisest
monarch of his time, having, it is recorded, as
much wisdom as three sages. He also became
able to talk, in every three words of a
sentence—barking two and speaking one—very
distinctly.

This story ought not to be doubted. For
was not the famous shepherd's dog, of
Weissenfels, taught by a boy who pinched his
throat and put fingers into his mouth
until he had learnt to speak words like a
man,—and did not an Austrian travel through
Holland in the year seventeen hundred and
eighteen, who could say his—or rather our—
alphabet, except only the letters, L, M, N?
Read Drechsler, on the Speech of Brutes.

Among the old Franks, Suabians and
Saxons, a dog was held in small esteem,
nevertheless, and indeed, for that cause, he
was not seldom set over the highest nobles of
the land. If a great dignitary had, by broken
faith disturbed peace in the realm, a dog was
put upon his shoulders by the emperor. To
carry a dog for a certain distance was, in the
time of Otto the First, and after it, one of the
severest punishments inflicted on unruly
princes. Nobles of lower rank carried,
instead of the dog, a chair—peasants, a
ploughwheel.

Emperor Frederick Barbarossa went to
be crowned by the Pope in Italy; and,
when upon his way, found that there was
murderous strife between Hermann, Count
Palatine of the Rhine, and the Archbishop
Arnold of Mayence. By this quarrel the
banks of the Rhine were stained with much
blood. After his return, therefore, Barbarossa
called a Diet at Worms, before which
he cited both the disputants. They appeared,
each expecting that his adversary was to be
discomfited. The emperor, having heard the
case, ordered the Count Palatine and ten
counts, his allies, to march over the border,
each with a dog upon his back; the other
nobles concerned in the quarrel were to take
the same march of a German mile, carrying
stools, and the peasantry to go after with
plough wheels. The clergy were condemned
to suffer a like punishment; but, saving their
reverence, it was allowed to be performed
for them by proxy. Soon after the year
twelve hundred, Gerhard, a lord in Querfurt,
had with other nobles fallen upon a pious
man, Deacon of Magdeburg cathedral, as he
journeyed on the highway, and deprived him
of his eyes. Emperor Philip fined this
Gerhard very heavily, and made him walk at
the head of five hundred of his knights from
the spot on which the outrage was committed
to the gate of Magdeburg cathedral, each
man with a dog upon his shoulders.

The ancient Persians symbolised Ormazd,
their god, in the form of a dog; for, to
a nomade race, there is no animal so
dear, no type of a Divine watchfulness
so true, as the protector of the herd. A
thousand lashes was the punishment for
maiming any able dog, and it was capital
offence to kill one. The sight of a dog by
dying men was said to comfort them with
bodings of the conquest of all evil and of
their immortal peace. In later times the
Persians held it to be a good token for the
dead if a dog approached the corpse and ate
from between the lips a bit of bread that had
been placed ther; but, if no dog would
approach the body, that was held to be a sign
of evil for the soul.

PARISH DOCTORS.

I HAVE been always in love with my
profession, although she has not used me well in
return, and my father before me was
enamoured of the same lady, who jilted him
also; yet both of us were ever content
with wearing her initials F. R. C. S., and
of cutting and slashing in her name, nor
have we ever taken up with hydropathy,
homœopathy, or any other fair enslaver of
the faculty for a single hour. My father had
a small country practice among people of the
better sort, and, as soon as I was old enough, I
used to accompany him upon his rounds,
waiting patiently in his gig sometimes for
hours, at this or that rich man's door, for
which he would reward me—when he took the
reins again—by detailing the particular case.

I protest I knew more about surgery at
ten years' old than some of my future hospital
companions were possessed of at twenty.
I was not quite twelve when I performed an
exceedingly difficult operation for compound
comminuted fracture of the left leg of our
parrot, the result of a cataleptic seizure.
I amputated the cat's tail, which the bird
had bitten through, with the like success; the
little quadruped's feet were simply but
originally placed in a walnut-shell for my greater
security, the operating-table was our kitchen-
dresser, and our bread-knife the humble
instrument of relief. My favourite toys were
anatomical specimens, and I remember being
earnestly desirous of putting my young
brother, of three days' old, into a large bottle,
which was my especial treasure, and of then