EVENING SPIDERS
Dogs

A movement of opinion is emerging against dogs. They are held against for being too numerous and for eating too much bread. It is certain that the dog population has increased in recent years in proportions that are worrying for public peace; all the people who live in a small suburban hole and who like to sleep from time to time will understand me... As for the bread they eat, far from holding it against them, it seems to me that we do not give them enough. I have noticed, in fact, that a dog busy eating its food cannot use its mouth to bark. I would therefore like my neighbors who own dogs (and they all do) to feed their animals food all day and all night, without interruption, using if necessary the same force-feeding methods by which even the geese themselves are silenced.
Another reproach that I would make in a friendly manner to the faithful servant of man is that he lacks a little diversity in his livery. Today, all dogs are German shepherds. Seeing so many shepherds, one would readily believe that everyone here has immense flocks. This is not the case. Apart from a few sheep hidden here and there under the sideboard or behind the chest of drawers, you can search all the houses without encountering the slightest livestock.
But there is something more serious: these shepherd dogs, which have been made into guard dogs, are for the most part ferocious and stupid animals, incapable of distinguishing a friend from an enemy, a household companion from a dangerous burglar; we saw this clearly at Drancy!
How much these poorly domesticated wolves make us regret the good poodle of yesteryear. This one perhaps ate too much bread - not to mention the sugar - at least he didn't devour the children, even when he had been shorn like a lion.

Bernard GERVAISE.