HOMEWARDS. "We are twelve, twelve of us! Are we to burst in this stifling heat?" angrily howled an old man, leaning out of the narrow carriage-door. "Please, look yourself," he continued, drawing back to show the train-conductor he was no liar. "She must get in all the same," the man answered calmly, and turning to somebody behind him, who was quite silent, "Quick," he said, "up with you, give me that bundle. I'll hold it." "No, no, thanks, it's all right, I can get up," murmured the woman anxiously; she caught hold of the handle with one hand, held tight to her breast a shapeless ragged bundle with the other, got up, and stood waiting in the middle of the railway carriage. The door was shut with a sharp bang; the train moved; she staggered and would have fallen had not the old man who spoke before held her up. At the sudden shock a small, thin arm peeped out of the ragged bundle. "Now, boys, we must make a little room; the poor thing cannot stand all the time," said the old man in a loud voice to his fellow-travellers. "Let them make room on the other side," struck in his neighbor, but nobody moved. She was hanging on to the laden luggage-net, and stumbling at every shake. "You are all thin ones over there," he continued, winking idiotically at the unwieldy paunch of the man near him, who was snoring. "Dare say, when you've nothing to eat," answered two or three, and some scanned each other's faces in silent taunt. "Now, then, let's squeeze up a bit, and make her a little room," spoke at last an old woman compassionately. "We shall be all the warmer!" she smile. added with a good-natured Then they all moved to the left, except the man in the corner, who would not give up his place, and shrank nearer to the window. The woman faintly said "Thank you," and sank down on the seat next to her kind champion; then drawing her arm with infinite care from under the ragged bundle, she stretched and moved it, with a sigh of relief, to release the cramped and aching limb. "Bad job having to travel with babies," said the old woman, turning to her. "I say, we don't want any squalling," cried out crossly a mealy-faced youth. "Oh, he won't cry, you needn't fear," said the mother, with a strange, pale smile. "Is he ill?” "A little," she answered after an instant's hesitation, in a trembling undertone, blushing deeply. "Where do you come from?" "America. I landed this morning." Two of her companions who had sailed with her sighed. "All alone?" down "My husband . . . remained there," she sadly answered, looking at her mourning. "Poor thing! And where are you going now?" "Home," naming a small village in the fever-stricken Maremma. "Have you made a little money, at least?" With an eloquent Italian gesture she scraped her thumb-nail on the edge of her teeth; that was the only answer. Then a wretched slow chorus arose in that stuffy atmosphere: each resigned voice telling its brief tragical history. "I made three hundred francs: it all went for medicine and doctors," so said the pale-faced youth, and his paleness showed how useless it all had been. "To go out, I sold my house and two fields: all my people died of fever!" "We come from France," said another, pointing to himself and his neighbor. "We had to fly; they wanted to settle our hash." "Here's my fortune," sneered another, holding up a five-franc piece. The screech of the whistle seemed to jeer from time to time at all that wretchedness; those useless wails, floating from the narrow windows, found no echo through the vast expanse of the dumb and indifferent plains beneath! Silence, indifferent, even hostile silence, was all that was vouchsafed to those pitiful tales. But how give pity when it was like hearing one's own story told over again? Only the snorer moved uneasily every now and then, muttering words. "How good that child of yours is!" exclaimed the old woman. The mother barely smiled. "A boy," she answered, "Nine months." "God bless him!" The mother shuddered. "Let me see it," continued the old woman, curiously, getting nearer. "No, no," she cried with sudden agony. Then she added: "He is asleep, poor darling!" It was midday. All now were quiet, exhausted by the hot weather. Some began to eat: they produced from ragged pockets or from inside unbuttoned shirts parcels with very dubiouslooking contents. The fat man, roused at last from his sleep, bought some bread and sausage at a station. mother also bit at some dry bread. "And that poor child, aren't you going to nurse it?" asked the old woman. The "Why, we've been here five hours and it has not sucked yet." The mother started. "Yes, now . . in a moment," she faltered faintly; and when her bread was finished she began very slowly to unfasten her dress, while the old woman watched her with a look of infinite tenderness, the look of all women who behold a mother's loving, holy care. She scarcely lifted a corner of her shawl, put her feet up on the opposite seat, and bending over her baby raised it to her breast. The men made more room for her, asked her to lean back comfortably. full of respect for that mother who re minded them of their own young wives and baby children, reminded them of all the joys and sorrows in their distant homes. "You can't have much milk," muttered the old woman. "Oh, quite enough: too much even," she replied with a voice that sounded like a broken sob. All the travellers were silent, for the heat of those burning hours was dreadful; a few smoked, two or three slumbered. Not a breath of wind stirred the still and heavy air. The train sped on, running to its destiny. "Bye-bye, baby," softly sang the mother, "bye-bye, baby-—” The men, soothed, shut their weary eyes. The train drew up: a shout, a name. The mother started to her feet, hurried to the door, tried to open it. "Wait, I'm coming," growled the conductor. With a hurried "Happy jour ney to all" the woman jumped down; the train was off again, but she stopped, staring at it stonily. "Well, what are you up to there, like a scarecrow," said someone behind her. She started in a fright and rapidly walked away, hugging the child to her breast. Out of the station, on the right, ran a lonely, sunny lane, bordered by thick grass; she walked steadily on for a long time, and when it seemed far enough stopped, sat down by the side of a ditch, and with her trembling hands began to unroll very slowly the shapeless, ragged bundle. It was the small body of a cold, livid child. The mother watched it intently, watched with tenderness and fear-she dared not touch it: the baby was dead; he had died two days ago, whilst yet at sea. They would have plucked him from her and sunk him in the bottomless depths. Never! Her mother's love The Speaker. found strength to dissemble, to play that terrible part. But now she had saved him! The only boon those distant, cruel lands had left her! The sea could not drag him away now. "Baby, baby, your own mother's baby!" she cried, frantically kissing the poor closed eyes, the little black mouth. "Oh, dear little baby!" and she trudged across the smiling fields, rich in the golden corn, holding forth to the sun the frozen little body. Far away, against the pure, blue horizon, stood out the village cemetery's crosses, sombre and sad. Amelia Rosselli. MANNERS AND MORALS Those writers who have studied the intelligence of animals have paid but little attention to the mental characteristics of the foxhound. Most of the dog stories that are told to exemplify some point of canine psychology are of the intelligence displayed by our house pets or by collies. Now, no careful observer can doubt that the dog learns many things from his constant association with man. The close and steady watching of his friends, to which the faithful animal's affection prompts him, opens out to him a new region of thought, and removes him to a certain distance from others of his race. As the companion of man, he puts away many doggish ways, and within the limits of his capacity he adopts those of the beings he loves. Thus among these specimens of the race we seldom see the dog as he is, but rather as the friend of man. While he has lost many of the resources of the canine race, he has gained some of the pleasures and many of the pains of mankind. The only place where we can view IN THE KENNELS. dog nature in a condition at all approaching that of its primitive state is in a kennel of hounds. There, and there only, I think, we see the animals living in a state which is a meetingpoint between the community life of the wild dog and the artificial existence of the dog which is in fact a member of our family. It is in the kennel that we can trace the beginnings of the remarkable intelligence which dogs manifest. Professor Romanes, in his "Animal Intelligence," remarks that the psychology of the dog would require a treatise to itself. But Darwin opens out a whole train of thought on this subject when he points out in "The Descent of Man" that social animals possess the highest possibilities of mental development among brutes. No one can doubt that the intelligence which originally led animals to perceive the advantage to the race of uniting into a community must have been above the average, or that a community life having been once adopted, the beginning was made of that upward progress to what we may call canine ethics, which is so marked in dogs. Foremost among these we may note the subordination of self for the common good, an elementary sense of duty to one's fellows, and of the obligation of the strong to defend the weak. These traits appear in a more or less developed form in all animals that live in community. In the case of the foxhounds, however, though they live in community, they have not the primal necessity of supplying themselves with food. Nor to the same extent as the wild dogs do they fall under the rule of the stronger hounds of the pack. At every moment of their lives are George and Jim with their thongs, to keep order and prevent the conflicts by which the master dog works his way to the rule of the pack. Nevertheless, we can see clearly the traces of the old life. Nor can any one who has lived with a pack of hounds doubt that they have among them certain rules and regulations of their own. Age, strength, and wisdom are respected, for I am sure that the stronger and older dogs exact and receive certain tokens of respect and submission from the others. No young hound, for instance, will be allowed to interfere with the timehonored right of one of the fathers of the pack to his own particular place on the benches at night, or to usurp his place at the feeding-trough. But one of the rules which is most strongly impressed on their minds is that the greatest of all sins is to leave the pack. Now, it is evident that there could be no safety, in a wild state, either for individuals or the community, except by keeping well together. It is said, indeed, that the packs of wild dogs in India are more than a match for a tiger; but alone they fall an easy prey to their constant enemy the leopard, whose ancestral predilection for dog-flesh has caused many a vacant place among our favorites in that land of exile. Indeed, though the pack together can pull down a sambur, this stag could easily beat off one or two couple of dogs. Therefore the first law of the pack is unity of action. The necessities of jungle life have so impressed this on the mind of the hunting dog, that now in the present day we find the same law prevailing. We come as it were into touch with the primitive dog in our kennels on this point. For if a hound leaves the pack or is for any reason lost for a time, it will not have escaped even a casual observer how on his return the hackles of the older hounds go up, and that a series of growls will express their disapproval and anger. Just so doubtless the fathers of the jungle packs greeted the truants, possibly expressing their disapproval in a still more forcible manner. To the same deeply implanted disapproval of a hound leaving the pack is, I think, to be attributed the habit of falling on and perhaps killing a hound that rolls off its bench at night. In this case, however, the voice of the huntsman or the crack of the whip will still the tumult. The instinct of the pack is to throw themselves upon their fallen comrade and rend him for his fall. He is for the time one apart from themselves. Yet in obedience to discipline their anger is soon appeased. It is indeed related that one huntsman had a bell suspended above the benches, from which a cord hung over his bed. Whenever a disturbance arose he had only to pull the cord and the kennel was at peace. Another relic of tribal ethics I have noted. Every one knows that from time to time hounds take a dislike to one of their number, and the life of such a dog is in danger if he is not removed. In all such cases that have come under my own notice I have found that the hated hound was an idler, one that had either no heart or no capacity for work. But I should not like to say that this was always so. As a case in point, some years ago, when in India, I received with a draft a hound named Champion. With him I was delighted at first, for he was an exceedingly handsome hound. Then came doubts, for I wondered why such a good-looking hound should have been drafted if there was not something more than usual against him. From the first the leading hounds of the pack disliked him. Old Senator rolled him over. Villager, the best and mildest of the seniors, never passed him without a growl; and Gambler, a very keen and savage hound, watched his opportunity to do him ill. The whole kennel was disturbed, and poor Champion was obviously in Coventry. He was always to be seen sitting alone in a corner with his ears turned back, in the way many dogs do when they are unhappy. At last one day when we were at exercise the pack, led by Gambler, fell on the luckless Champion, and my man and myself had some difficulty in rescuing him. After this Champion was sent across to the ladies' kennel; but he was scarcely more popular there, although he was not ill-used. It was with them that he first went out hunting. Then the secret was out. Champion had no taste for hunting. He never did any work, -indeed he took no interest whatever in the sport. Since Champion's day I have had or known hounds that had not even the faintest trace of a hunting instinct, as I have had pointers that would not point and retrievers without the instinct to fetch and carry. But hounds that do not work have always been disliked in the kennel. While I do not say that a useless hound is invariably illtreated-and of course a hound may be unpopular in the pack on account of his surly temper-yet in the ma jority of cases when one has been attacked, the sufferer has been useless in his work. I suggest therefore that the conduct of the pack shows us that the community used to put away its useless members, and thus keep up the working strength of their body. There is, however, in every kennel a hound that is master, and when his rule has weighed heavily on his fellows I have twice noticed something very like a conspiracy among the others to rid themselves of the tyrant. In these cases the leaders in the attack are not necessarily the most quarrelsome hounds; but there seemed in one case, as I shall show, a disposition to make a simultaneous attack. The pack once aroused is for no half measures, and the latent savagery of the hounds seems thoroughly stirred. Every kennel has such stories of outbreaks where the hounds have killed and eaten a companion, this generally being one whose temper was uncertain. In one pack there was a powerful hound that lorded it over the others. If he fancied a snug corner he simply went up to the occupant and growled, on which the other hound would rise up and resign the coveted place. That the others were afraid of him was plain. One day they were all around him in the yard when they made a simultaneous dash at old Ravager. The feeder hearing the scrimmage rushed in, and with the greatest difficulty rescued him. The others had him on the ground, and he was so badly bitten that he was shortly afterwards drafted. In the other case a hound of a most sulky and unsocial disposition, but which was always keen for blood, was racing, hackles up, at the head of the pack and close to a sinking fox. The hard-pressed fox managed to squeeze into a drain, and Challenger followed and stuck fast. In a moment the rest of the pack had pulled him out and killed him. I must |