The Bristol Royal Mail: Post, Telegraph, and TelephoneTombs, Robert Charles
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The Bristol Royal Mail: Post, Telegraph, and Telephone
Tombs, Robert Charles
Postal service -- England -- Bristol
Recently many valuable dogs were poisoned in different parts of the
city, and a suggestion appeared in the newspapers that the postmen might
be urged to constitute themselves amateur detectives for the discovery
of the miscreants, on the ground that they enter every garden and knock
at every door throughout the length and breadth of Bristol, and that at
early morn and late at night as well as by day. The postmen are public
spirited, but it is hardly likely that they would go considerably out of
their way for the purpose, considering the risks which they run from
dogs and the annoyances to which they are subjected to by them. The
postmen have to face the snappish terrier and the ferocious-looking
bulldog. Not infrequently they get bitten, and more frequently get
soundly abused if, for their own protection, they belabour a dog
occasionally, or give it a taste of their belt for want of a better
weapon of defence or offence. Reciprocity would demand that if the
postmen look out for dog poisoners, the owners of dogs on their part
should take the utmost care to keep their dogs properly secured when
known to be dangerous or to have a special dislike to the public
servants in blue. The bold announcement given on the pillar of a gateway
of a residence in a fashionable suburb of Bristol, "Beware of the
bulldog," is not calculated to give confidence to the postmen who have
to deliver the letters. One poor dog, well known in the city, fell dead
in Small Street; and as the dog had just been seen to visit the Post
Office, and even to drink from a Bristol Dogs' Home trough standing in
the portico, it was assumed by the many spectators of the poodle's sad
death that he had come to an untimely end through drinking poisoned
water from the Post Office trough. The vessel was therefore confiscated
by an over-zealous supporter of the Dogs' Home, and the water was
subjected to analysis, but investigation proved that it was innocuous,
although from an examination it transpired that the dog really had died
from poison, which had, however, been taken in meat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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