Some years ago I was welcomed to take part in a Chautauqua out in Warrensburg, Missouri, along with Harry Truman and George Washington Carver. We had a grand time of it, and took pleasure in each other’s business ever more when we were off responsibility. In our Warrensburg wanderings I occurred to see a statue of a dog, a hound dog called, “Old Drum.” I believed it charming to have a statue of a hunting dog in the town square, and associated it to the soft hearts of the good people of Warrensburg. They even sent me home with a pin of Old Drum, outdated 1870.
But it was not till just recently, when I ended up being curious about Old Drum, that I found it was more than sentimentalism that triggered the casting of that statue. Old Drum was killed, and the match for damages in the loss of a good hunting dog went all the method approximately the Missouri Supreme Court back in 1870.
Was a good hunting dog worth $50 or not? That was apparently what the trial was everything about, till a cunning old legal professional, George Vest, withstood make a case for the worth of a dog as an animal, and successfully provided a eulogy of Old Drum.
“Gentlemen of the Jury, the very best friend a man has in the world might turn versus him and become his opponent. His daughter or son that he has actually raised with caring care might show thankless. Those who are nearby and dearest to us, those whom we rely on with our joy and our reputation, might end up being traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he might lose. It flies far from him, maybe when he requires it one of the most. A man’s track record might be compromised in a minute of ill-considered action.
“The individuals who are vulnerable to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us might be the very first to toss the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one definitely unselfish friend that man can have in this self-centered world, the one that never ever deserts him and the one that never ever shows thankless or treacherous is his dog.”
For the very first time, maybe ever, the worth of a hunting dog was moved from dollars to heartstrings, and think what? The Missouri Supreme Court agreed heartstrings. Old Drum’s owner was granted $50 plus court expenses, and Old Drum got his due justice together with that invaluable statue in the town square.
Yes, it was lastly developed by law that the worth of an animal dog amounted to, or maybe in excess of, the worth of a hunting dog. But naturally we dog fans have actually understood that the whole time. Suddenly, that pin of Old Drum 1870 that they offered me so long back in Warrensburg, deserves the world to me. I question how Harry Truman and George Washington Carver are getting along.
— For more than thirty years, in over 4,000 efficiencies, writer and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has actually been committed to protecting the wit and knowledge of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose preaching, though not reverently pious, is busily American.”
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