is needed--would speedily result. It is still
only the comparative few who are kind to animals--the majority are
either wholly indifferent or absolutely cruel. But if children were made
to realize that even insects have spirits, they, at least, let us hope,
would cease to take delight in pulling off the wings and legs of flies.

Man has hitherto entertained the ridiculously unjustifiable idea that
all the animal and insect world has been created solely for his benefit,
to be killed or to be kept alive entirely at his discretion. Such an
absurd and presumptuous belief ought to be exploded once and for all.
The animal world, so all sane people must agree, was undoubtedly created
to lead the same, free, untrammelled life as does man himself. Man--save
in cunning--is nothing superior either to the dog, horse, or other
mammalia; indeed, he is not infrequently so inferior that one cannot
help thinking that possibly the higher spiritual planes are not for him
at all, but for those who--misnamed the lower creation--have surpassed
man in spirituality. Let those who doubt this study the superphysical
all around them. Let them carefully watch animals, and observe their
propensities, their psychic faculties of scent, sight, and hearing. They
can easily test them in any house or locality which has a
well-established reputation for being haunted. They will then see how
close a relationship there really is between the animal and
superphysical worlds. And if they want further proof,--proof of a more
material nature,--let them search around for some spot stated to be
haunted by a ghostly phenomenon in the form of a dog, horse, cat, or
other animal,--and investigate there themselves.

Such investigations have convinced me, and surely, by using these same
methods with patience and perseverance, other people might also be
convinced. At all events, let them try. For, a conviction like mine--a
conviction that an eternity exists for our canine pets and dumb
friends--is certainly worth a lot of striving after. At least so I
think.

PRINTED BY

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.

PLYMOUTH

STRANGER THAN FICTION

Being Tales from the Byways of Ghost and Folk-lore

By MARY L. LEWES

Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 234 pp., 3s. 6d. net.

"There is much curious matter in the volume well narrated."--_The
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"Everybody ... likes a good ghost story, and in the volume before us the