Mid Sussex Times - Tuesday 10 July 1883

Dogs and cats are often a great nuisance where there are well-kept gardens, and, as a trespasser, in this respect, Prinny does not escape censure. In addition to this, he has been guilty of permeating the hedge of an amateur, who spares no pains to keep things as they should be. In order to keep at bay intruding quadrupeds, our friend has recently provided a fence of four-feet palings.

Prinny, evidently believing this proceeding of the gardeners to have some pragmatic significance, resolved to such an infringement on the liberty of his species. With a trot, a run, and a bark proceeded on his expedition of resentment.

First he rolled in the flower border; next raked the beds with his fore feet; and, final rushing through the “scarlet runners” and “British Queens,” he made a spring to clear the fence. The attempt proved abortive, and, falling back, his neck became firmly fixed between two spikes. Poor dog, how he howled, and moaned, and struggled to release himself.

He was, however, as firmly pilloried as ever was one of our ancestral felons, His cries, at first so powerful, gradually became more and more feeble. Fortunately, the first person who passed that way was neither Priest nor Levite, but a real, good Samaritan. Seeing that the suspended animal had almost succumbed to suspended animation, he hastened to change its position from a vertical to an horizontal one. This produced desired effect. Prinny at once proceeded re-invigorate his inflative organs. He now ingeminated his gratitude, by licking one hand, and then the other, of his deliverer. Finally, erecting his tail, he again resumed his dogmatic propensities.

THE MID-SUSSEX TIMES—TUESDAY. NOVEMBER 27, CUCKFIELD. 1883

The Death of Prinny.

—After an eventful life of seven years’ duration, this symmetrical mongrel has met with an untimely end. Prinny was, at one the same time, the most popular and the most unpopular member of his species, and these extremes of like and dislike resulted from one cause, viz., his extremely domesticated propensity. The sagacious animal could make his home wherever he was welcomed. His obtrusive habits, however, brought him into many conflict, and when we take into consideration the numerous missiles with which he was assailed, such as empty lobster tins, flint stones, faggot sticks, brick bats, and whole bricks, it is a matter of profound wonder that he invariably managed to escape without a dislocated rib.

On the other hand, Prinny had many friends, who admired him not a little. He was patted, caressed, and even kissed to such degree as might produce a feeling of jealousy in the mind of the most exemplary sweetheart. It is said that he on more than one occasion escaped destruction by poison, the vendor of that deadly article having in his discretion substituted flour for arsenic.

Prinny had a great antipathy for music, and the sound of the itinerant German, or the coach-guard’s horn, caused him to howl so dismally that many a one has hastened to enquire what accident had occurred, and who it was that was dreadfully hurt.

On Saturday last the creature was having a run on the Ansty-road, in charge of his owner’s penultimate son, when, by some means he became compressed beneath the wheel of a farmer’s waggon, which painful incident culminated in death.

Notwithstanding the regret of many, perhaps no one will be more affected by the accident than Her Majesty’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. Poor Prinny!