more dogs.
The city of Cimmeria in Hades, having tried asphalt pavement, which was
found too sloppy for that climate, and Nicholson wood pavement, which
kept taking fire, decides on Belgian blocks. In order to meet the new
expense a dog-tax is imposed. Since Cerberus belongs to Hades as a
whole, the state must pay his tax, and is willing enough to do so--on
Cerberus as one dog. The city, however, endeavors to collect on three
dogs--one license for each head. Two infernal coppers, sent to impound
Cerberus, fare not well, one of them being badly chewed up by Cerberus,
the other nabbed bodily and thrown into the Styx. In consequence of this
they obtain damages from the city. The city then decides to bring suit
against the state. The bench consists of Apollyon himself and Judge
Blackstone; Coke appears for the city, Catiline for the state. The first
dog-catcher, called to testify, and asked whether he is familiar with
dogs, replies in the affirmative, adding that he had never got quite so
intimate with one as he got with him.

"With whom?" asks Coke.

"Cerberus," replies the witness.

"Do you consider him to be one dog, two dogs, or three dogs?"

Catiline objects to this question as a leading one, but Coke manages to
get it in under another form: "How many dogs did you see when you saw
Cerberus?"

"Three, anyhow," replies the witness with feeling, "though afterwards I
thought there was a whole bench-show atop of me."

On cross-examination Catiline asks him blandly: "My poor friend, if you
considered Cerberus to be three dogs anyhow, why did you in your
examination a moment since refer to the avalanche of caninity, of which
you so affectingly speak, as him?"

"He is a him," sturdily says the witness. After this Coke, discomfited,
decides to call his second witness: "What is your business?" asks Coke,
after the usual preliminaries.

"I'm out of business. Livin' on my damages."

"What damages?"

"Them I got from the city for injuries did me by that there--I should
say them there--dorgs, Cerberus."

And so on. Catiline gains the day for the state by his superior logic;
the city of Cimmeria must content itself with taxes on a single dog. But
the logic of the facts, it will appear, are with the dog-catchers, Judge
Coke, and the city of Cimmeria as against the state of Hades: Cerberus
is more than one dog.

FUTURE LIFE IN THE VEDA.

India is the home of the Cerberus myth in its clearest and fullest
development.