"Being brought up amongst horses, he was never happy unless with them at home, or travelling about. His chief delight was to travel up and down with the Brighton coach. He had been known to travel, during the last spring of his life, for eight successive days to and from Brighton, Sundays intervening.

"The distance from London to Brighton by way of Leatherhead, Dorking, Horsham and Henfield, the road which the stage coach traversed is seventy-four miles. It was with great difficulty he could be kept on the coach, always preferring to run by the side of it and it was his being placed on the top of the coach, from feelings of humanity on the part of Clarke, the coachman, which cost him his life.

"On one occasion the guard placed him inside the coach, when there were no passengers, but in a few minutes he was surprised to see him running beside the coach, having jumped clean through the glass window.

"During the early part of the summer he went with a strange coach to Tunbridge Wells, not liking his berth he did not return to London by the same conveyance, but found his way across the country from Tunbridge Wells to Brighton and went up to London with his favourite team.

"He was well known by many on the road from London to Brighton, and in some places on the journey met with hospitable treatment. At the time of his death he was about five years old. Clarke informed us that he would kill a goose on his travels by the roadside, throw it over his back like a fox, and run for miles, and he offered to lay a wager that the dog would accompany the coach between Brighton and London daily for a month, Sundays excepted, and kill a goose by the roadside each day of his travels, provided birds were put within his reach. His skin was preserved, and has been stuffed. The 'Brighton Coach Dog' may be seen in the attitude of life in the bar parlour of a tavern in the Edgeware Road".

I do not think I mentioned, when speaking of my kennels, and dogs, that for many years, an old Great Western Railway coach formed part of them, it was composed of a first-class, second-class, third-class compartments, and a luggage van, as a general rule, we had a pair of dogs, male and female, in each division, and used the luggage van for biscuits.

As some of my readers may like to try the same experiment, I may say that there is no difficulty in the way, there are usually railway coaches of different sizes (I believe, you can also purchase horse boxes and trucks, which often serve the purpose of cow and poultry and cart and trap sheds) for sale at Swindon, where I bought mine for five pounds.

Of course, it was merely the body, without any of the iron under part, but with the windows, doors, seats, ventilators, etc., no cushions or upholstery of any kind, but the only expense I had to incur was to get the village smith to fix some small iron bars on the outside of each window frame, to enable us to open the windows to give plenty of air, without the fear of the inmates getting out. The company delivered free to their nearest station, which in my case was within two miles from my place, and I there had a trolly and pair of horses, and the coach run on to it and lashed firmly to the trolly and it was brought without much difficulty as the weight was only about thirty-five hundredweight, although it looked a heavy affair.

There was more time and trouble in fixing it in its place in my yard, than in the journey there. And some years afterwards when I changed my residence, I got the village smith to fix an axle and a couple of low strong wheels at each end of the coach, and one of the neighbouring farmers easily took it along the road to my new dwelling place, with a couple of his cart horses, to the great amusement and delight of the rural population, who insisted that each of the divisions was filled with some of my dogs, which were well known in the district as being frequent prize winners.

The following is related on the authority of an old newspaper called the "Boston Traveller," published in the United States of America: A gentleman stopping at an hotel in Boston, privately hid his pocket handkerchief behind the sofa cushion in the coffee room and left the hotel accompanied by his dog, after walking for some distance, he suddenly stopped and said to his dog, "I have left my handkerchief at the hotel, go back and fetch it for me," giving no particular directions about it. The dog immediately returned at full speed, and entered the room his master had just left. He went directly to the sofa, but the handkerchief was gone. He jumped upon tables and counters, but it was nowhere to be seen. It turned out that a friend of his master's had discovered it and supposing it had been left by mistake, had taken care of it for the owner. But "Tiger" was not to be foiled. He flew about the room, apparently much excited, in quest of the "lost or stolen." Soon, however, he was upon the track, he scented it to the gentleman's coat pocket. What was to be done? The dog had no means of asking for it, by word of mouth, and was not accustomed to picking pockets, and besides the gentleman was ignorant of his business with him. But Tiger's sagacity did not suffer him to remain long in suspense.

He seized the skirt containing the prize and furiously tearing it from the coat, hastily made off with it, much to the surprise of the owner. Tiger then overtook his master, and restored the lost property. Both the owner of the dog and the gentleman who had lost the tail of his coat, applauded the dog for his sagacity.

In the southeast window of St. Mary's church, Lambeth, there is the full length figure of a pedlar with his pack, his staff and dog. This is the portrait of the unknown man who gave "Pedlar's Acre" to the parish of Lambeth. The story is worth telling. In the year 1504, a poor pedlar passing over a piece of waste ground near the river sat down to rest on the trunk of a tree. While seated here, he noticed that his dog acted very strangely, busying himself with scratching the earth with his feet and barking, and smelling about, every now and then running up to his master and looking him earnestly in the face and trying to drag him from his seat. The pedlar did not at first pay much attention to the dog, but its repeated barking and running to and fro compelled him, at last, to see what the animal wanted. Going to where the dog had been scratching he was surprised to find something shining below. Digging on the spot he discovered a large sum of money with part of which he purchased the land originally known as Pedlar's Acre, but now called the Bel-videre Road, in Lambeth.