Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1895 — DOG WORSHIP IN FRANCE. [ARTICLE]

DOG WORSHIP IN FRANCE.

Canines Have Their Own Tailor* and Eat Off the Family Table. A new religion has sprung up in France—that of dog worship. These darling pets of smart women have a charming time of it when they are not being vivisected by brutal scientific men, as is often the case, for pet dogs, like refined people, are peculiarly sensitive, their nerves as well as their tastes being ultra-developed. The prized favorite of his doting mistress is armed at all points. He has his own tailor, who provides him with a variety of clothes, of which the fashion changes monthly. He has winter coats, summer wraps, mackintoshes, comforters, pocket handkerchiefs, even respirators. Dogs have been trained to eat their dinner off a tablecloth and to carry a sunshade over their devoted heads. False teeth, too, can be provided, and dentists are found specially prepared to minister to the canine race. And with all this luxury the charm of the dog’s company will be destroyed. Artificial and civilized, he will dlffer'howise from men, and we all have experienced the value of a dog who is our friend, who is funny and naughty and mischievous and frolicsome and faithful and undiscriminating, who loves us when we are unjust as well as when we are good, who bears no malice, and never philosophizes, and lives only for pleasure and to have a good time, innocently expecting us to share it with him and looking to us confidently for sympathy—-“that dumb, inarticulate ecstasy,” as Mrs. Browning says, “which is so affecting—love without speech.” Dogs must be pagans frank and free; therein lies their worth as companions for men.—London Graphic.