We thus see that a very large proportion of our own virtues and vices are developed in our canine “fellow-mortals”; there is, however, one state of mind which we should hardly expect to find in any animal, viz., despair. With man it is, alas! sufficiently common to feel that he has had enough of “life’s fitful fever,” and that the only thing left is to make haste “---- to be hurled Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world.” But who would expect a dumb quadruped to have feelings of this sort? Yet that such may be the case is rendered probable by the following remarkable story:-- “A day or two since, a fine Dog, belonging to Mr. George Hone, of Frindsbury, near Rochester, committed a deliberate act of suicide by drowning in the Medway at Upnor, Chatham. The Dog had been suspected of having given indications of approaching hydrophobia, and was accordingly shunned, and kept as much as possible from the house. This treatment appeared to cause him much annoyance, and for some days he was observed to be moody and morose. On Thursday morning he proceeded to an intimate acquaintance of his master’s at Upnor, on reaching the residence of whom he set up a piteous cry on finding that he could not obtain admittance. After waiting at the house some little time, he was seen to go towards the river close by, when he deliberately walked down the bank, and, after turning round and giving a kind of farewell howl, walked into the stream, where he kept his head under water, and in a minute or two rolled over dead. This extraordinary act of suicide was witnessed by several persons. The manner of his death proved pretty clearly that the animal was not suffering from hydrophobia.”[108] The last statement of the writer of this anecdote may be called in question, as it is a well established fact that a mad Dog will often plunge its head into water, and make violent though ineffectual efforts to drink; and it is very likely that the Dog in question had no real intention of committing suicide, but was drowned while attempting to slake his insatiable thirst. This seems a probable explanation, though it takes the point from our tale.