But, it will be asked, if the life of a Boys’ Dog is so unhappy, why do they enter upon such an unenviable situation, and why do they not dissolve the partnership when it becomes unpleasant?  I will confess that I have been often puzzled by this question.  For some time I could not make up my mind whether their unholy alliance was the result of the influence of the dog on the boy, or vice versa, and which was the weakest and most impressible nature.  I am satisfied now that, at first, the dog is undoubtedly influenced by the boy, and, as it were, is led, while yet a puppy, from the paths of canine rectitude by artful and designing boys.  As he grows older and more experienced in the ways of his Bohemian friends, he becomes a willing decoy, and takes delight in leading boyish innocence astray, in beguiling children to play truant, and thus revenges his own degradation on the boy nature generally.  It is in this relation, and in regard to certain unhallowed practices I have detected him in, that I deem it proper to expose to parents and guardians the danger to which their offspring is exposed by the Boys’ Dog.

The Boys’ Dog lays his plans artfully.  He begins to influence the youthful mind by suggestions of unrestrained freedom and frolic which he offers in his own person.  He will lie in wait at the garden gate for a very small boy, and endeavor to lure him outside its sacred precincts, by gambolling and jumping a little beyond the inclosure.  He will set off on an imaginary chase and run around the block in a perfectly frantic manner, and then return, breathless, to his former position, with a look as of one who would say, “There, you see how perfectly easy it’s done!” Should the unhappy infant find it difficult to resist the effect which this glimpse of the area of freedom produces, and step beyond the gate, from that moment he is utterly demoralized.  The Boys’ Dog owns him body and soul.  Straightway he is led by the deceitful brute into the unhallowed circle of his Bohemian masters.  Sometimes the unfortunate boy, if he be very small, turns up eventually at the station-house as a lost child.  Whenever I meet a stray boy in the street looking utterly bewildered and astonished, I generally find a Boys’ Dog lurking on the corner.  When I read the advertisements of lost children, I always add mentally to the description, “was last seen in company with a Boys’ Dog.”  Nor is his influence wholly confined to small boys.  I have seen him waiting patiently for larger boys on the way to school, and by artful and sophistical practices inducing them to play truant.  I have seen him lying at the school-house door, with the intention of enticing the children on their way home to distant and remote localities.  He has led many an unsuspecting boy to the wharves and quays by assuming the character of a water-dog, which he was not, and again has induced others to go with him on a gunning excursion by pretending to be a sporting dog, in which quality he was knowingly