Two Day Rovers
Jane Loudon introduces us to two dogs getting on with their busy lives.
1851
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Jane Loudon introduces us to two dogs getting on with their busy lives.
1851
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Victorian environmentalist John Ruskin complained that the Midland Railway had torn up lovely countryside between Derby, Matlock and Buxton just so that ‘every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton’, overlooking the benefits to Derbyshire’s canine population.
abridged
THERE is a dog at Derby who often visits Matlock by the railway, going by one train, and returning by another. He never goes farther than Matlock baths, and always returns the same night to Derby, which is his home.
In the Natural History Magazine* a story is told of a Setter dog, who forced his way into an omnibus in the Edgeware Road, much against the consent of the conductor and passengers, as the dog did not belong to either, and who used every means to entice him out, which he constantly resisted in the most surly manner, so much so, that they were in danger of being bitten if they attempted to force him out. These attempts were repeated every time the omnibus stopped, but always without success, till they arrived at the Eagle in the City Road, when, the moment the door was opened, the dog jumped out, and walked off to a neighbouring street which it was afterwards discovered was his home.*
abridged
“The Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology And Meteorology” Vol. 6 (1833), available at The Internet Archive. The magazine was edited by Jane’s husband John Claudius Loudon; the couple met after John enjoyed reading Jane Webb’s science fiction novel The Mummy!, set in the 22nd century, and invited her to lunch.
The story was submitted by a correspondent signing himself ‘Cattus’ who said he was eyewitness to the event.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate her ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Where did the dog that regularly boarded a train in Derby go?