3-070-721 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Pleasures of Hope, by G. L. Harrison, 1881. 'The canine mind - not least, that of an elderly mastiff, the gravest of dogs - is eminently reflective and deliberative. And its faculty of prospective thought, like the same faculty in the human mind, is most seriously exercised in the contemplation of the day's dinner; of that inevitable question, what shall we get to eat? and sometimes, how shall we get it? But man has the advantage - or woman, who cooks the food of man - of knowing what is in the pot, when actually put on the fire; and further knowing the precise hour when this meat shall be dished up for the table, and who shall partake of the dish. It is hard upon Jowler, with his personal share of interest in the proceeds that he should be denied all means of ascertaining the precise sort of boiled victuals, though his nose will tell him it is savoury flesh, that simmers in the bubbling cauldron a few inches distant...The simple bone, with that sweetest part of the flesh proverbially next the bone, will satisfy the judicious Jowler, who feels sure that he will get it to-morrow, if this dish of boiled meat is to be placed on the family table, as he understands, for their ordinary dinner of to-day'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.