DOGS AS SPIRITUALISTS.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2901, 3 June 1878, Page 2

DOGS AS SPIRITUALISTS.

A gentleman named Romanes hag been., anxious to find put whether dogs are be- > Hovers in ghosts and spiritualism, and has been making experiments accordingly with results for a knowledge of which the world is indebted to the New York Times. Mr Romanes began his researches into these mysteries with a bone,, and this, the critic cays of him, is alone sufficient to show the heartless and irreverent character of the man. A terror will submit to be deluded by false representations that there are eligible cats in the coal* scuttle, or that the piano is full of rats, but he feels that bones are too sacred to be made the subject of jest. Mr Romanes, however, took the bone, and tied round it a thin silken thread, and just as the little Scotch terrier with which his investigations were conducted was in the ant of seizing it his master slowly drew it away. The dog regarded the moving bone with an amazement which found expression in erect ears and a tail gradually throat between his hind legs, and becoming convinced, as Sir Romanes supposes, that it was but the ghost of a bone, incontinently fled, howling dismally. On the whole, the New York Times considers that the dog behaved much more sensibly than many men would have done under a similar belief. "In all probability," the , journal says, " had Mr Romanes ever seen a piece of roast beef in the act of 1 cruising unassisted around the table, he , I would instantly hare asked it preposter- [ ous questions, and would subsequently ' have let his hair grow long, and have become a confirmed Spiritualist. His intelligent dog did none of these thing, but as soon as he decided that he had seen a spiritual bone he refused to have anything more to do with it, and cqiflSiftae to wear his hair of the usual length, and to cling to that faith in which he was educated." Mr -Romanes was not yet satisfied. He took a pipe, got some soap and water, and began to blow bubbles along the floor. It took some time to convince the terrier that those airy nothings were not a new kind of particularly dangerous rat, but. presently he put his paw on cne, and of course it collapsed. He tried a second, and it likewise vanished, and then, recollections of the ghostly bone overwhelming him, agaiu he fled. He proceeded to make faces at his victim, and the grimaces he made were so,hideously ugly that we are told the dog mistook him for the worst ghost he had ever seen,- whereupon he crept under the sofa and tried tp die. Lovers of dogs will sympathise with the pooT little terrier, and, if Mr Romanes continues his investigations, will hardly regret to hear that he has to deal with a larger dog, which pursues a more spirited policy with regard to ghosts.