A TRIBUTE TO THE DOG.
A speech made by the late Sentator Vest of Missouri in the trail of a man who had wantonly shot a dog belonging to a neighbor. Mr Vest repersented the plaintiff, who demanded $200 damages. As the result of the speech, the jury, after two minuties' deliberation, awarded the plaintiff $500.
"Gentlemen of the Jury: The best freind a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, prehaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its. cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish freind that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.
Gentlemen of the Jury, a man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in proverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintery winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and the sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He quards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other freinds desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is constant in his love as the sun in it's journey though the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no hihger privilege that that of accompanying him to quard against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death"
