Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 2.2
'No dog carts': London's dogs rejoice at their freedom from labour in
the public streets.
Source:
Ash, E.C
.
(
c.
1934)
This Doggie Business,
London: Hutchinson & Co.,
opposite p. 74; reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University
Library
ideology attempted, through its public/private and male/female distinctions, to hold
apart. Dog-stealing was an innately vicious response to the effects of the practical
and ideological separation of these geographies. For one thing, the reversal of
bourgeois polarities—the servility and subordination of the owner forced to pay a
ransom for his/her dog's restoration, the passivity and helplessness of an owner held
to ransom by his/her own sentimental attachments to a 'useless' pet—was
desperately cutting. It left the owner, whether male or female, in the 'feminine' role
associated with emotion, attachment and tender-heartedness. That is why both
Robert Browning and the men of the Barrett household advised Elizabeth Barrett to
defy the demands of the dog-stealers, this representing a 'manly' refusal to parlay
which would put an end to the endless cycle of ransom and abduction. Dog-stealing,
moreover, put a price on things—sentiments, attachments, domestic companionship
—which should have no price. As a leading article in
The Times
(26 March 1845:4)
put it in reference to a stolen dog which might be valuable either in monetary or
emotional terms: such a dog 'may be the companion for years, which are not to be
