Before leaving Mr. Davis I must tell a story about his dog Ponto, which illustrates the intelligence often found in the canine race. He was an ordinary black and white cur, which, as is often the case with favorite dogs, was equally a delight to his master, and a nuisance to everybody else. He was in the habit of following the family to church, and after being kicked out by the sexton, he would slyly find his way in, and going up the broad aisle, scratch at the family pew door. In order to stop this habit, orders were given to keep him confined to the house on Sundays, to which Ponto demurred. After suffering confinement two Sundays he circumvented the orders and through the first door or window which happened to be opened, every Sunday morning at the earliest opportunity he left the house and fled to the house of Nathaniel Holmes, on School street, who did the family chores, and there passed the day, returning home in the evening. He knew when Sunday came by symptoms, which he easily discovered, and while never going to the Holmes house at any other time, he kept up his weekly visits for many months, until sickness or accident ended his career. Ponto reminds me of another dog which belonged to John J. Russell, when he lived in the Cotton house, which stood where Brewster street enters Court street. Mr. Russell bought of Warren Douglas of Half Way Pond one of a litter of hound pups with the agreement to take him when he became old enough to be of use. When he thought it about time to bring him home he went for him, and it being a rainy day he held the pup by a chain between his feet beneath the boot which excluded all sight of the road over which he had never before travelled. At the end of a fortnight, thinking that the pup had been chained to his kennel long enough to become domesticated, he unfastened his chain with the intention of giving him his breakfast. Preferring, however, freedom to breakfast, the pup hopped over the fence, and was last seen running up Court square. Mr. Russell, thinking he might have found his way to Half Way Pond, drove there the next day, and there was the pup. On comparing notes with Mr. Douglas, it was found that the little fellow had travelled ten miles in less than two hours. So much for the instinct of Ponto and the hound pup. If we ask what instinct is, it might be correct to say that it is the gift of God unimpaired by education. The homing pigeon has it when she finds her way to her distant nest. The Indian has it somewhat qualified by civilization when he laughs at the white man who needs a watch to show the lapse of time. The Christian has it, beyond the realm of reason, a divine teacher assuring him of a life beyond the grave, a belief in which the device of human education has done much to impair if not destroy. But without further suggestion I submit these mysteries to the investigation of my readers and pass on.