The Bombay pinjrapol owed its origin as much to the Parsee respect for dogs as to the supersti tions of the Jains. In 1813, the dogs running wild and masterless in the street had become so intolerable a nuisance, that an order was issued for killing them, and the result of this was a succession of street rows and disturbances betwixt the dog-destroyers and dog-reverencers, which led the latter to offer a sum of money for each mangy cur that was released from durance and made over to them. Some 30,000 or 40,000 of these canine quadrupeds were in this way annually packed off, the bulk of them were sent to an island near the mouth of the Tapti to starve or to worry or infect each other. So cruel are the tender mercies of the wicked and superstitious. Great expense was incurred on this account, and as the funds began to diminish from failing zeal, Motichund Amerchund, a great Jain merchant, and partner of Sir Jarnsetjee Jejeeboy, exerted himself and obtained an agreement on the 18th October 1834 from Slave Gosainjee Maharaja, and setts of the Hindus, Parsecs, and others, by which they bound themselves to raise taxes on opium, cotton, sugar, bills of exchange, and pearls, that the lives of a great many animals may be saved, which is an act of great charity.' The Srawaks or Jains agreed to raise a fund amongst themselves for the required ground and building, the rates were collected and sent yearly to the managers appointed, namely, Botnanjee Humus jee Wadiajee, Sir Jamsctjee Jejeeboy, Mutichund Amerchund, Vukutchund Khooshalchund. The agreement, signed by about 450 merchants, con tains a clause stating that any excess of the funds may be applied to such charitable objects as may be approved of by the trustees. At one time
there were about seven 'Akita of rupees (170,0(40). Whilst the Bombay was under the vigil• ant superintendence of :sir Janisetjee Jejeeboy, the funds poured amply in, and the institution was most carefully conducted. Since 1b51 the place has become a sink of animal and moral corruption. When seen by the Editor in 1866, it was filled with wretched sick animals, and the place was inexpressibly filthy. It fearfully fails to fulfil any one of the ends it professes to aspire after. To the horse, the ox, the goat, the sheep, and the dog, more especially the first and the last, fresh air and exercise are indispensable, not only to health and enjoyment, but to existence. As to the horse, he is a hunter of the hills ; to him confinement is a curse, and followed by the worst of ills. This noble beast —who probably has never once within his life been tied up for forty-eight hours on end, whose master, daily even and morn, when there was no work for hint to do, saw that he had air and exercise—from the day that he enters the pinjrapol to that when his dead carcase is dragged out of it, is pinned down to one spot. The sheep and goats fare but little better ; the dogs are infinitely worse off than the horses. It not unfrequently happens that animals which have been sent there by mistake are recovered by their owners ; a single hour in the kennels sends them back covered with vermin, and infected with the most loathsome diseases. Lions, tigers, panthers, and other carnivora are occasionally kept in the pinjrapol ; it is forgotten that for every day that one of these is kept alive, one sheep or goat must die to feed it.—Bombay Standard, 1858 ; Bombay Times.