BOYS-HERE AND ELSEWHERE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 954, 22 October 1910, Page 10

BOYS-HERE AND ELSEWHERE.

Sir,—Your .paragraph in ' to-day's Dominion regarding "Mastiff and Fishhook," and Mr. Seed's remark, "English boys would never have done such a thing," must havo.caused many, of your readers mingled, amusement and disgust. Whilst giving tho boys in question all .praise for their efforts on the poor dog's behalf, I can only picture the. animal's suffering under their amateur surgery. ( Mr. Seed is quite' right—English boys probably would never have done such' a thing; they would certainly not havo left the dog to suffer the whole night— either they would have "operated" then and there, or got some, senior with moro knowledge to tackle tho difficulty. What astonishes me is that Inspector Seed should havo been content to givo the boys elaborate instructions about chloroforming, and left the poor brute at the mercy of the boys' well-intentioned, but undoubtedly barbaric, methods. Surely the society which the inspector represents would havo sanctioned him spending a small, amount of their funds in taking the dog there and then to a competent vet. I should have thought that a man moving about the animal world would himself have been capablo of performing tho comparatively simple operation necessary. I have, during the past forty years, had' considerable experience both o£ colonial and English boys. Allow me to sa.y, that if any comparison should bo drawn, and, to my mind, it was quite uncalled for in this case, the English boy

has quite as much initiative as his Ncw Zcaland brother, and 'certainly- as much consideration for their dumb friends—l am, etc., A.P.D. Lower Hutt, October 15.