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Kamensky, under the title "Bipeds and Quadrupeds at Krasna-Gorka," have been published in recent issues of the Geneva monthly journal, L'Ami des Animaux. Countess Kamensky relates with great grace and humour the singular history of two young oxen on her own Russian estates, affirming, in conclusion, that the facts are perfectly correctly stated according to her personal knowledge. They certainly show that the poor beast, whom Pope has contemptuously designated "the dull ox," is yet endowed with powers of memory, resolution and enterprise which we commonly attribute only to the most intelligent domestic animals.

An ancient domain of Mdle. Kamensky's ancestors is named Zolotaïa-Niva, and is situated at the distance of several hours' march from Krasna-Gorka. Around the deserted mansion extends an enormous park, which in its sombre grandeur excites the imagination of the peasantry for miles around. Among the luxurious herbage of this vast enclosure were born two beautiful white twin calves; and as their mother was so carelessly guarded and irregularly milked by the old dairy woman that she was able to feed her calves freely, the two creatures became splendid animals. When the terrible cold weather of a Russian winter

set in this same intelligent cow managed to obtain the warmest place in the cattle sheds and the largest allowance of fodder for herself and her offspring; and when spring returned, and the rich pasturage was again open to them, the young bullocks gambolled merrily in the grass and sunshine.

But a cruel destiny put a stop to their innocent enjoyment. They were one day led off, together with twenty-two other young oxen, by seemingly interminable miles of barren road under a burning Russian sun, to the distant town of Krasna-Gorka. There, next day, they were harnessed to heavy carts and driven mercilessly to labour from morning to night, their necks being bent under galling wooden yokes. This penance lasted a week, and at the end of that time the dwarfish Ochrenko, their guardian, drove them for their Sunday's rest into a field where grew many sour herbs and few sweet grasses.

Poor Koltyke and Krollyke, the two white oxen, and their companions, looked at each other meaningly, and then at Ochrenko, who had fallen fast asleep in the shade of an old Scythian tomb. What they thought about and then and there conspired to do, the sequel will show!

The evening of that Sunday was cele

brated by a wodka party, at the house of the old coachman, Gregory, and Ochrenko had the honour of attending it, with many other servants of the owners of KrasnaGorka and Zolotaïa. The conversation fell on supernatural events, and Ochrenko timidly remarked that the Devil had, in the course of the day, carried off some of his oxen out of the field where they were grazing. When it appeared, on inquiry, that Ochrenko had never counted his oxen, for the excellent reason that he did not know numbers and believed he had seven fingers, no further attention was paid to his complaint of Satan's proceedings. Next morning, however, when it came to loading, it appeared that there were twelve carts unprovided with oxen. Four and twenty were missing! Ochrenko received a severe beating at the hands of the steward, and the police searched everywhere for the oxen, but though it seemed impossible that so many large beasts could have disappeared, no tidings of them were obtained, and the general opinion remained that Ochrenko was right, and that the demon had really been concerned in the matter.

A long time after this event the old coachman, Gregory, died, and his young master attended his funeral in the cemetery of Zolotaïa-Niva, where a place was set apart for the servants of the family.

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After the interment the young lord, accompanied by his steward, who was his foster brother, left the peasants to their feast of enormous cakes and glasses of "wodka," and walked off through the glades of the vast park, attracted by their romantic beauty. In the depths of the woodland he was surprised to perceive some moving objects among the thickets, and on approaching he discovered-not foxes and hares (which alone were supposed to inhabit the great wilderness), but -the missing oxen! There they were all, peaceful and happy, some of them standing up to their knees in the rich pasture of their country, some lying down chewing the cud, as if secure for ever from further molestation.

"We will keep the secret of their retreat," said the young lord to his steward, delighted at their intelligence.

They have well deserved their liberty."

The escape of these oxen was almost miraculous, considering the complications of the road, which in several places crossed and forked on the vast plains where neither house nor tree stood for landmark, and where no coachman finds his way without mistake till he has been ten times to Zolotaïa-Niva. Nevertheless, Countess Kamensky pledges her word to us that it happened on her own estates, in the year 1892. F. P. C.

was doomed,

Escaped its driver, and for mercy fled

To Rabbi Jehuda, that holy man

Of God whose praises are in every mouth. Jehuda drove it harshly back again"Go thou," he sternly said, "and meet thy doom."

And on that day a strange and sharp disease

Crept through his veins and troubled all his soul.

So passed the time until one summer day The Rabbi raised his eyes from off the Law

The Sacred Law wherein he ever read

And saw his servant-maid with angry eyes Young weasels carry forth to kill them all. "Nay, let them live," Jehuda mildly said, "For it is written in the Holy Book,

The Lord is merciful and good to all, His pity covers all that He hath made.' So potent is the word of kindly love, Jehuda's illness from that moment ceased; With brain unclouded and untroubled soul,

Prince of the Law, in Israel many a day He taught the Gospel of the Mercy Seat. WILLIAM E. A. AXON. From The Ancoats Skylark and Other Verses.

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by any competitor, or the entry will be disqualified. The result will be announced, and the successful photograph published, in our November issue. See coupon on cover, to be sent with the entry.

I

An Interview with Capt. Pirkis.

Na lucid interval some philosopher (no matter who) remarked-" Tis a mad world my masters." Our friend would have felt more than ever the truth of his remark had he lived in the present day, for we have a race of presumably sane beings who, rivalling the witches' arts of the Dark Ages, are attempting to contrive, out of filthy decoctions, cures for most of our bodily ills. One of these ills is hydrophobia, an occasional disease of a peculiar character; it is the counterpart of rabies in the dog. One treatment for the disease is that of the late M. Pasteur, at the Institute of Paris; the other remedy, a much more simple and modest one, is the Buisson bath. Curiously enough both are the inventions of Frenchmen, the former of a

chemist and the latter of a fully qualified doctor. Though we of the Animals' Friend rather like dogs, we are not the less solicitous for the well-being of our own species; but we have a pretty considerable objection to the Pasteurian treatment because it is based on the most atrocious sufferings of the creature known, and well known, as the friend of man. So with a view of informing ourselves and our readers what the Buisson system of treatment is, we interviewed the leading spirit of the movement in Great Britain, to wit, Capt. Fredk. E. Pirkis, R.N., now living in semiretirement at the High Elms, Nutfield, Surrey.

Mr. Pirkis has been retired from the service for some years, and spends the whole of his time in assisting humanitarian movements and propagating the merits and principles of

The entire glandular system seems to be in the highest degree inflamed. Besides this the brain, the organs of deglutition, digestion, and occasionally of respiration, are actually involved. The entire animal is inflamed. Most frequently the eyes, which at first glow like live coals, turn green, ulcerate, and perish, the rabid dog before it dies becoming absolutely sightless.' Now, Pasteur's method of inducing the disease artificially by trepanning--that is, making holes in the skulls of animals-produces, if anything, a worse form of that terrible disease described by Mayhew. Just listen to the description given by a writer in the Fortnightly Review, July, 1886:

Pasteur's Artificial Rabies.

'Pasteur holds that to have vaccines always ready to hand of the requisite degrees of activity, there must be a constant trepanning of the animals, whose living brains he wants for a virus-garden. The trepanned and inoculated rabbit soon gets numb and paralysed. The guinea-pig becomes exasperated by its torture, and wants to bite everyone and everything near it. In the case of the dog, mental anguish is the first symptom. The poor brute appears conscious that it must soon be dangerous, and as if wanting to beg pardon beforehand. Its efforts to propitiate indulgence for the state which it feels is coming on are heartrending to anyone who has any healthy sensibility. Veterinaries assure me that natural rabies, or rabies caused by bites, are mild compared to rabies induced through virus being let in on the brain; and I believe them, since I saw how quietly some of the wolf-bitten Russians died. The delirious period is fraught with mental and physical torture to the trepanned dog.'

The Public Gone Mad.

"Now," said the Captain, as he concluded, "there's a nice system of torture for modern science to inaugurate, and for a civilized community to endow."

"How?" I inquired.

"Why, it's this way," replied he. "Modern physiological science announces to the world'We've invented a new cure for an old and terrible disease. We want a new Institute to carry on our work on behalf of suffering humanity. Whereupon the general public, without the least reflection or examination, jumps to the conclusion that these devilish clever chaps, don't-cher-know,' are going to annihilate disease, and without waiting for an impartial examination, take all the scientists have to say for granted, and pour money in on them. That is what the world did for the chemist Pasteur."

"But so very few people know of the dreadful suffering you have described," I interjected. "Of course, that is the case," replied

"Just so; but I notice Sir Joseph Lister did not lay much stress on this side of the question, only naming a few rabbits used, in his recent eulogium of Pasteur at Liverpool," I rejoined.

"Not he," replied the Captain. "He, and other scientists who are in the same boat, don't want the public to know the other side of the question, because if the public did know it, it would soon shut up these dens of torture. Why people can have no idea of what goes on in the Pasteur Institute, and similar laboratories in Europe and America! Just listen to what even a French writer said in the Paris newspaper, La Paix, of August 15th, 1892

'M. Pasteur . . . took us into the cellars of his laboratory. There, in circular cages of close trellis work, are imprisoned the dogs of different kinds. One of them has arrived at the last stage of rabies. He cannot bark in natural manner, but emits hoarse and characteristic cries somewhat like the crowing of a cock. These peculiar cries frighten the occupants of the neighbouring cages, and they would certainly escape at full speed it M. Pasteur allowed the doors to be open. If one kicks the door of a mad dog's cage, he rushes to the trellis work and gnaws it furiously. A thick bar of iron is held to him; he seizes it in his mouth, grinds his teeth upon it, and it is difficult to wrest it away from him; the same thing occurs when the end of the bar has been previously heated.'

"You will notice there is no mention here of anææsthetics lulling the pain. Rabies kills a dog within fourteen days; you can't chloroform some dogs for as many minutes without death. Their hearts won't stand the chloroform. And yet the sister of a medical man, who wrote a trashy novel, made a medical character in it say that Pasteur's experiments were all done under chloroform. It looks like it, does it not, from what I have just read to you?

"Of course," I replied, "the thing is absurd, but then the lady was romancing. How long has Pasteur's system been in vogue?

"Oh! he commenced to try it on human beings in 1885, but for some considerable time before that he had been experimenting on dogs and other animals; in 1884, at Copenhagen, he said that the number of dogs he had used in his experiments was so numerous that they had passed beyond computation. As to the sufferings of the animals there can be no manner of doubt, for Mrs. Crawford, the well-known lady journalist of Paris, writing in the Fortnightly Review a few years ago, stated that Pasteur had himself admitted that the dogs suffered greatly."

"Ah! I am afraid there can be little doubt of that; and, after all, what is the fruit of all this horrible system of torture?" I asked.

Over 300 Patients have Died.

"Why this-that there is no Pasteurian cure for hydrophobia. The most its advocates claim for it is that it is preventive if the disease has not made its appearance. Now it is absolutely impossible to give reliable returns of the successes of a preventive treatment. In the nature of things this must be so, as Dr. Berdoe said the other day when writing to the Pall Mall Gazette:

'How, in the name of all that is scientific, can a preventive treatment be the subject of statistics? The logical fallacy, Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, is seen in all its grotesqueness in the statistics of the Pasteur Institute. Hundreds of cases of "dog-bite" are treated daily at our hospitals with a dab of caustic. In most cases nothing is known of the history of the biting animal, and seldom is any record kept of the case, except of the name of the patient on the casualty sheet. Perhaps once in 10,000 instances the bitten person may return for treatment of hydrophobia. Would the hospital people then be justified in stating in their report that they had prevented 9,999 patients from dying of hydrophobia?'

"The failures of a preventive treatment are, of course, sadly enough attested by the deaths of the patients who have undergone it. You know, I suppose, that the number of patients who have died after undergoing this treatment is now over three hundred. There is a tabulated list of them published by the Victoria Street Society, 20, Victoria St., Westminster, S.W. Why, as a matter of fact, instead of Pasteur having decreased the mortality from hydrophobia in France it has increased since he commenced his inoculations. In Germany, where there is no belief in his system, and people do not resort to his treatment, the mortality is very low. Many eminent French, English, German, Austrian, Italian, and American, medical and scientific men have examined his treatment and condemned it.

Pasteur's Limitations.

"Why," continued the Captain, "here is a list of his limitations compiled by my friend, Mr. Ernest Bell, who has gone carefully into Pasteur's own writings on the subject. 'At first,' says Mr. Bell, 'he told us positively that his method would protect all patients at any time before hydrophobia actually broke out, but since then he has introduced many limitations:

1. He does not now profess to protect unless the patient comes to him within a fortnight of being bitten.

2. He does not reckon deaths which occur during the treatment.

3. He does not recognize those which occur within a fortnight after the end of the treatment.

4. He does not attempt to keep any record of his patients after that time.

5. He does not even include in his list deaths which occur afterwards, and are duly chronicled elsewhere.

'6. He does not claim that his inoculations have permanent effect. Re-inoculation, he says, is necessary after a time.

"About ten years ago, on noticing how Pasteur's patients were dying, some friends and I resolved to make the Buisson treatment known as an alternative," replied Capt. Pirkis. "It is a simple, a common-sense, an inexpensive, and at its worst and lowest, a perfectly harmless remedy. You cannot say that for Pasteur's. He killed Lord Doneraile with his intensive treatment, and many other English people died when a milder form of his treatment was forced upon him by his failures. He refused -- and his successors refuse to receive a patient when the hydrophobic symptoms have commenced. We do not. This is the Buisson cure: Dr. Buisson, a member of the Paris Faculty, contracted hydrophobia from the saliva of a female patient suffering from that disease, getting into a wound on his finger. On the seventh day the symptoms developed, and Buisson, who had believed that a vapour (commonly called a Russian) bath was able to prevent hydrophobia, though not to cure it, got into one, seeking an easy death. He raised the heat to 127° Fahr., and it cured him. This was in 1826; thirty years afterwards he was still alive and reported the whole circumstance to the French Government. Now contrast that with this fact, some of Pasteur's patients have died years after the treatment, when they were thought to be cured'!

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In England and India. "This system has been established England and India. It is not a commercial speculation; it is purely a philanthropic enterprise; we offer treatment gratis. Hydrophobia never declares itself before the seventh day, it is therefore possible to take a long journey in order to procure the vapour baths. We have set up above thirty of these baths in Indian cities, where a great effort has been made by a medico-scientific clique to found a Pasteur Institute and get a Government grant. For England we have now established the London Buisson Institute at Spring Grove House, Upper Norwood, London, S.E., under the care of a fully qualified and experienced medical man. large number of hydropathic establishments throughout the country the same treatment can be had. We found, however, that Boards of Guardians would not send patients to the hydropathic places which had promised to receive

At a