Dog Day.

I used to like dogs--a puppy love that I got bravely over, since once
upon a time, when a Dutch _bottier_, in the city of Charleston, S. C.,
put an end to my poor _Sue_,--the prettiest and most devoted female bull
terrier specimen of the canine race you ever did see, I guess. My _Sue_
got into the wrong pew, one morning; the crout-eating cordwainer and she
had a dispute--he, the bullet-headed ball of wax, ups with his revolver,
and--I was dogless! I don't think dogs a very profitable investment, and
every man weak enough to keep a dog in a city, ought to pay for the
luxury handsomely--to the city authorities. Some people have a great
weakness for dogs. Some fancy gentlemen seem to think it the very apex
of highcockalorumdom to have the skeleton of a greyhound and highly
polished collar--following them through crowded thorough-fares. Some
young ladies, especially those of doubtful ages, delight in caressing
lumps of white, cotton-looking dumpy dogs and toting them around, to the
disgust of the lookers-on--with all the fondness and blind infatuation
of a mamma with her first born, bran new baby. Wherever you see any
quantity of white and black _loafers_--Philadelphia, for instance,
you'll see rafts of ugly and wretched looking curs. Boz says poverty and
oysters have a great affinity; in this country, for oysters read _dogs_.
Who has not, that ever travelled over this remarkable country, had
occasion to be down on dogs? Who that has ever lain awake, for hours at
a stretch, listening to a blasted cur, not worth to any body the powder
that would blow him up--but has felt a desire to advocate the dog-law,
so judiciously practised in all well-regulated cities? Who that ever
had a sneaking villanous cur slip up behind and _nip_ out a patch of
your trowsers, boot top and calf--the size of an oyster, but has felt
for the pistol, knife or club, and sworn eternal enmity to the whole
canine race? Who that ever had a big dog jump upon your Russia-ducks and
patent leathers--just as he had come out of a mud-puddle, but has nearly
forfeited his title to Christianity, by cursing aloud in his grief--like
a trooper? Well, I have, for one of a thousand.

The fact of the business is, with precious few exceptions, dogs are a
nuisance, whatever Col. Bill Porter of the "Spirit," and his thousand
and one dog-fancying and inquiring friends, may think to the contrary;
and the man that will invest fifty real dollars in a dog-skin, has g