Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1873 — A Smart Dog that Can Do Every thing but Make Money. [ARTICLE]

A Smart Dog that Can Do Every thing but Make Money.

A gentleman who lives just round the corner has a- dog by the name of “Nig,” called so because he-ls black. “Nig” is probably one of the cutCst animals that has ever walked on four legs, or two, for that matter, for it makes really little difference to him how he travels. He will sit up and hold a penny on his nose by the hour; bring his own tail in his mouth to you on the slightest bidding; opens and shuts doors with the noiselessness of a sneak thief; brings up the newspaper from the door-steps in the morning; watches the letter-carrier as he passes, opens the gate for him, and brings in the missives; goes out in the yard and fetches a half scuttle of coal, himself filling the scuttle; plays base-ball in the position of catcher against the best of them-.'Would beat “Shorty" Force as short stop, and does a hundred other things too numerous to mention. But there is just one thing he won’t learn; and the attempt to get the idea into his noddle has cost the owner many nickels and shinplasters. A dog, as everybody knows, has a wonderful scent; and as everybody likewise knows, most people having had experience in that way, a great deal of money is lost by accident upon the street. Now, argued the owner, if I can teach “Nig” to go round and pick up stray stamps he’ll make my eternal fortune, and so he set about experimenting. Whenever he and *.‘Nig” go out together, he will make it a point to drop a shinplaster, and if his canine sagacity does not observe the treasure himself the master calls his attention to it. “Nig”,then goes for it, and in a moment reduces it to pulp. When a nickel is dropped, he makes short work by swallowing it. This thing has been going ou for some time now, and the habit acquired in an incipient stage of the practice has become so rooted that it will probably never be eradicated. But it is ever thus our fondest hopes are dashed 1 to the ground. Here is good-for-nothing, rollicking “Nig," who can do almost | anything under the sun, that is difficult and unprofitable, but the moment you atI tempt to turn his talent to value it I vanishes in thin air— Chicago Timw.