Page 4 Advertisements Column 4

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9789, 12 October 1917, Page 4

The picture of a stray dog being led on a chain to the corporation destructor buildings on Clyde quay is one that occasionally may be seen. The man in charge of the stray dog department is what is known as a “hatter.” He works entirely “on his own,” without the aid of a conveyance such as is usual in larger cities. Official information, is to the elfect that his work is far more effectual than if he were accompanied by a dog cart. He finds his w r ay into all sorts of odd corners and lurking places beloved of the stray canine, and he has been known to undergo considerable personal risk in hauling bulldogs out of caves and corners that would bo utterly neglected by men with a cart. He had an insignificant trophy the other day on the end of his chain. It was of mongrel type, between a greyhound and a terrier. As he led it along the by-street by the barricaded, discarded, Te Aro railway station, it was hunched and shivering, and moved sideways. It seemed to know instinctively that no good was coming to it. “Oh 1 that 1 were in Constantinople,” it seemed to utter. There the dogs have the freedom oi the city. Not so in Wellington. -Here the ownerless, unregistered, and wandering dog is mercilessly searched out in all sorts of highways and byways by the indomitable master of the municipal canine department. it, after, a certain period, owners cannot be found for the collected dogs, or they cannot find a purchaser at auction, they are mercifully disposed of in a scientifically arranged lethal chamber.