North Carolina Newspapers

Page TWO THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1961 C ILOT Southern Pines North Carolina “In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money for all concerned. Wherever there seems to be an occasion to use our influence for the public good we will try to dp it. And we will treat everybody alike.”—-James Boyd, May 23, 1941. Revisions Needed in New Dog Law While it is hoped that the town’s new dog law will put a stop to children being bitten by dogs on the school grounds and to elderly persons and others being threatened by dogs on the streets, there are certain provisions of the law that are giving numerous dog owners cause for concern. The law provides that no dog may “run at large” without a muzzle, implying that persons who do not have the time, the patience or the interest to walk their dogs daily on a leash should, if the dogs are to have exercise, provide the animals with muzzles—^yet informed dog owners agree that a muzzle is an impractical, in humane and ridiculous piece of equip ment, to be used only in emergencies. A muzzle is impractical because a dog wearing one can become entangled in bushes or some other place that would cause harm to the dog or to property. A muzzle is inhumane because a dog is un able to protect himself against attack by another animal, while wearing one, and also because muzzzles are likely to be badly fitted, and so uncomfortable. A muzzle is ridiculous. Any dog in his right mind would resent one and be humiliated by one. Readers to whom such a reaction on the part of the dogs does not matter are wasting their time reading this editorial. sjs i'fi * Another disturbing provision in the new law is that unclaimed, impounded dogs may be “surrendered” to a hospital or “reputable institution of learning” for research purposes. This provision is at odds with the policy of the Moore Couny pound which does not release dogs to any institution, no matter how “reput able,” for research purposes. Since Sou thern Pines proposes to use the facilities of the Moore County pound, we do not see how this provision of the local law can be applicable. The provision is an open invitation to financial finagling in view of the fact that “institutions” have traveling representatives who pay for research animals. This portion of the law is thoroughly abhorrent to dog lovers, many of whom know, through investiga tion or information, the despicable con ditions under which some “research” animals are forced to exist. Whatever may be the evidence on this score, we say: let the researchers get their dogs elsewhere. * * * Item number three: The law empowers policemen, the county dog warden or any member of the sheriff’s department to kill any “dangerous, fierce or vicious” dog which “cannot be safely taken up and im pounded.” The question immediately aries: who is to say what dog is sufficient ly “dangerous, fierce or vicious” to war rant an officer’s shooting it? Many normal dogs will, quite sensibly, behave in a “dangerous, fierce or vicious” manner when threatened or faced with capture. This provision is so vague and potenti ally dangerous to dogs that it is imaccept- able to most dog lovers. It is exactly the sort of thing that humane dog control laws are designed to eliminate. This sanctioning of the shooting of dogs (the wording of the law is that they “may be slain”—but we presume that this would mean in most cases shooting) puts too trying a burden of choice on the of ficers attempting to capture a dog. It could also result in cruel wounding of dogs who are shot but not killed. :i: :!c The thought that emerges from a care ful consideration of the whole law is that no town should enact or try to enforce such a law unless it has adequate mach inery to accomplish the task— a trained and skilled warden (once known as “dog catcher”) and equipment to capture and impound dogs humanely. We gather that local police are going to be called on to enforce the dog ordinance, turning over animals they have picked up to the coun ty dog warden who will then place them in the county pound which is located a few miles from Carthage on the road to Southern Pines, but still eight or nine miles distant from this community. Re trieving dogs from this pound will be a considerable hardship on many residents of Southern Pines. Certainly, the police should, not be saddled with the job of dog-catching, except in an emergency situation. We should think that this feel- in.g would be shared by the officers them selves. The Pilot feels a considerable responsi bility in connection with the dog law, be cause this newspaper strongly urged thav the town do something to control dogs on the school grounds where eight children were bitten by dogs in the 1960-’61 school year and three have been bitten in the current school year. We believe that the council passed,the recently adopted law in good faith, mind ful of the threat to school children and to others who had made complaints to the council about dogs running at them, running after cars or otherwise being a danger or a nuisance around town^ It was obvious during debate by the council on the ordinance that council members had hoped that some sort of law could be enacted that would control dogs on the school grounds or in the busi ness section without placing a penalty on the many dogs who go their way, for the most part quite harmlessly and happily, in other neighborhoods of the town. Council members were informed by their attorney, however, that they could not enact a dog control law that would apply to one part of town and not to another— hence the town-wide ordinance that was approved. Debate on the new ordinance was not extensive, although members of the council did show some trepidation at enacting so sweeping a law in a town noted for its dog lovers. We wish that the council had consulted with several informed dog owners, with veterinarians and with organizations de dicated to the welfare of animals, before enacting the new law. * * # As the matter stands now, with the law on the books, we think the council should very seriously consider amending the ordinance to eliminate the muzzle pro vision, the disposition of unclaimed dogs to hospitals or research institutions and the permission for dogs to be slain by officers. Further, we suggest that the town pur chase the necessary equipment to capture dogs humanely, either cage “traps” such as the county dog warden is now using or a tranquilizing “gun” that shoots a needle giving a dog a tranquilizing injection, from which the animal recovers. One can hardly expect the police department (whose members should not be spending their time running after dogs anyway) to enforce the dog law, without the pro per equipment. The treatment accorded animals is a measure of civilization, anywhere. Let it not be said that Southern Pines— one of the most civilized, sensible and humane communities on the face of the earth—is to be found lacking in the quality of the laws it enacts in this field. ‘From Harmony to Heavenly Harmony’ The news last Friday of the death of Dr. Frederick Stanley Smith, of Raleigh, must have brought sorrow to many of the older generation here. Dr. Smith, before he went on to be director of music in the Raleigh public schools, as well as organist of one of the capital’s largest churches, was in charge of music in the Southern Pines schools. It might almost be said that Dr. Smith started music in the local school. Deeply interested in choral music, and with out standing skill as a choral director. Dr. Smith built up the school glee clubs to a pitch of excellence never surpassed since that time, perhaps never fully equalled. As a student of music and a composer, he had great understanding of the medium, while his love of children and young people and his delight in seeing the young talent grow gave him, it seemed, special powers. While here he organized several glee clubs in the school and also taught piano, and singing. Perhaps his outstanding achievement, while here, was the crea tion of a girls’ chorus of fifteen to twenty of the best voices. The group sang en tirely without accompaniment and sang like angels—for once the old saying seems near the truth, so clear, so true, so lovely was this group’s singing. Dr. Smith was very proud of his choruses and the students responded to his pride and affection for them with af fection on their side and admiration. For many the sorrow occasioned by the death of this good rnan arid fine musician will be encompassed and sweetened by i memories of the beauty his skill and dedi cation brought forth. THIS SEASON Now trees their leafy hats do bare To reverence Winter’s silver hair; • A handsome hostess, a merry host, A pot of ale now and a toast. Tobacco and a good coal fire. Are things this season doth require. —POOR ROBIN’S ALMANACK “Well . . . Il Was Nice While It Lasted!” iiil JO •.■i-.v;..',-''.- MS - <1 f tf Oilfrcri-w: READING PLEASURES 40 YEARS AGO RECALLED Do 'Advantages^ Mean Happiness? By W. C. BURTON In Greensboro Daily News Youngsters today have a great many things which youngsters did not have when I was a young ster. Most of these things are grouped loosely under the head ing of Advantages. This classifi cation is frequently false, but let it pass. I just can’t help wondering if tb.2 ‘ kids of today are as happy with their advantages as we were with our disadvantages. We didn’t have television. We didn’t even haVe radio until I was nearly grown—and for a long time it was mostly just somebody playing the pipe organ from KD KA, Pittsburgh, or a soprano named Jessica Dragonette. Our movies were as silent as the Sphinx. It was the day of the reader. Even to fully enjoy a movie you had to be able to read because all of the dialogue and a considerable amount of narra tive fill-in was thrown on the screen in the form of the printed word. Such printed passages on the screen were called “titles” and some were very well and wit tily written. (Maybe I’ll do a col umn on movie “titles” sometime; but not now.) What we had was more won derful, I think, than today’s “ad vantages.” We had—though w.e never thought about it in that way—a full awarenes of the end less, magical riches of the printed page. We enjoyed the limitless, timeless, miraculously simple pleasure of reading. Not that we were a bunch of bookworms. We were not. W.e spent a just proportion of time playing pea-dabs, back-lot base ball, cops-and-robbers and at all manner of similar cultural pur suits. There were some—a few— who read little, if at all, just as there always will be. Almost all of us spent some time down at the Grand Theatre, too, enthrall ed with the derring-do of William S. Hart or Eddie Polo or Tom Mix, This, however, was limited by strict financial allotment—a dime onc-e a week for a movie. For fun and suspense and vi carious adventure, dependable; swappable and always available, most of us read. We didn’t always read what our parents would have liked us to read. We curled up with the approved books and magazines at home in the living room, but secreted in the bed room, the re might be more s-en- room, there might be more sen- and absorbed by a shielded light. In our neighborhood, though, the favored literary “speakeasy” was a barn. There were several excellent and commodious barns with hay-cushioned lofts which were superbly comfortabls in all The Public Speaking 'How Good Is Your Blood Program Pledge?' To the Editor: Have you signed a blood donor pledge card agreeing to give blood at one of the visits of the Red Cross Bloodmobile and failed to keep your pledge? Many resi dents of Moore County have sign ed a pledge agreeing to give blood to replace that given a friend, or perhaps a stranger re quiring blood in an emergency, and have failed to honqr their signature when the Red Cross Bloodmobile arrived in Moore County. During the operation of Moore County’s blood program over the past three years, residents of this county have failed to donate a quantity of blood equal to that used by the two hospitals of the county, thereby placing Moore in debt to other counties cooperating with the Blood Center at Char lotte. Unless residents of Moore County donate and send to the Center as much blood as the hos pitals of this county use from the Center, this county will lose Its affiliation with the Blood Pro gram by default. The Red Cross Blood Program is one of the finest contributions to the public that any one of the allied medical organizations make. It provides a large storehouse of readily available blood at the Charlotte Center, so that for any patient in need, it may be cor rectly cross-matched and there fore transfusions can be given with minimum risk. Blood is im mediately available for those in need, without waiting to find blood donors of the right type, when in case of an emergency re quiring a considerable quantity of blood, a delay might prove fatal. The blood is drawn by. tech nicians and typed and handled by experts who are specialists since they do nothing but work with blood. There are many further benefits, including providing many of the blood fractions such as albumin, fibrinogen and glob ulin, all of which have a distinct place in medicine. Perhaps the Red Cross and the physicians of Moore County have not informed the public suffi ciently as to the fine service the Red Cross renders in providing the citizens of Moore County with the nation’s No. 1 Blood Program. It is the tradition of our citizens to rise to meet their needs. I feel very strongly that if our citizens of Moore County are properly in formed of their need and respon sibility they will donate sufficient blood for our County to be re tained in the American Red Cross Blood Program. When asked to pledge blood for a friend or someone in need of a, transfusion, will you honor your pledge? CHARLES A. S. PHILLIPS, M. D. Southern Pines but extreme weathers, within the confines of that excellent area centered by Piedmont and Irvin streets. There was, most exquis ite of luxuries, a livery stable at the very heart of this desirable community. It belonged to my Uncle Rube McCollum and its loft was our equivalent of a club reading room. W’e stashed in the hay our col lected and combined copies of dime novels and the lurid-looking (but morally simon pure) littl.e monthly publications which car ried the perpetual advantures of Dead-Eye Dick, Old Sleuth and Young Wilde West (with his true- blue sweetheart. Arietta.) We made snug nests in the hay for relaxed reading. The great loft of the livery sta ble was the choicest rendezvous for the perusal of illicit literature (our mothers and fathers called it “trash,” while sanctioning the drivel of Horatio Alger) but we also patronized other barns, changing now and again as cir cumstances and whim dictated. The Book-of-the-Month Club had not been invented at the time, but we kids had a sort of Barn- of-the-Month Club. I have had a lifelong passion for words printed on paper. Like' my friend. Dr. Rosalyn Gardner of Gallaudet College, I will .even read lists of names—of people I don’t know. I have an addiction to magazines. As a boy I would lug home any magazines that anyone might give me. As a man 1 .still do. My greatest windfall came some years after I had closed the last of the “penny dreadfuls.” It came at the hands of our neigh bor, Mrs. Will Williams, whose name was reverently mentioned in this space last Sunday. The Williamses subscribed to or bought numerous newspapers and even more magazines. The magazines accumulated faster than Mrs. Williams could bring herself to dispose of them. She would remove them from the house and store them in a huge woodbox on the back porch. It was a well-built receptacle with a slanted lid which kept the con tents clean and dry. One memorable day the wood- box was full to the brim. It would not contain another magazine, not even the thinnest Literary Digest. Mrs. Williams decided she would clean out the storage bin and asked me if I would like to have the magazines. It took me almost two days, working steadily, to haul this staggering treasury of reading and looking material across Pied mont Street to a room I had above the tool house and alleyway be side by father’s grocery store. I used my coaster wagon and stacked the magazines in goods boxes in order to carry greater loads. Grains of Sand HAPPY NEW YEAH! Forehanded is file word, and so GRAINS starts this column look ing toward 1962, a column that is as much an aftermath of Christ mas as a foretaste of the New Year, with words of caution: not to say Warning. In fact it could well be headed: How To Make Next Christmas Merrier. Or Happier. Two items are on our mind: Christmas cards and cellophane. Take cards first. They come with the loveliest pictures. You want to hang them all where you can feast your eyes on them. But then you can’t read the messages. Christmas cards are a delight and a problem, leaving you with demoralizing hangovers: “Where has that address gone?”—“Were there three children or four in that photograph, and didn’t I write ‘hugs to your TWO’ on my card?”—“Is this their HOUSE? This kind of toolshed-garage- greenhouse structure?” — “That doesn’t look like her husband at all; what can have happened to HIM!” and then there were those four children we said all looked JUST like their grandfather. And it turned out they were adopted. There’s one hint we’d like to pass on about pictures of children. You’d better not depend on looks to decide who they are. When you’re really stumped to detect who the cEU’d comes from, try a study of the children’s names— it’s a lot safer. For instance, if the big boy happens to be named “Zach,” that’s easy. He’s bound to be Zachariah Hoppit’s son. Or if the little towhead who squints is called Daisy, what about that Marguerite Something. You have a vague idea she squinted too, enough to clinch it. But some times you’ll get parents with fancy ideas who scorn the family tree and call their children Clio or Artemis or Marmaduke Fitz- william. Then all you can say is: “It would be just like those Win- kledinks to put on the dog with their children’s names,” and take a chance it’s them. (By then you’re too mixed up to be prissy about your language.) Move on now to the other big problem of Christmas: cellophane. We hate to say it but it’s getting worse. It sticks to things you don’t v,;ant it to stick to, like your fin gers or your hair, or under your shoe and it is more impossible than ever to remove from what ever it enwraps so dearly. Cello phane wrapping clings to its wrapped contents with a strength and desperation greater than that of the mother clutching her child to her bosom in the face of fire, flood, or approaching murder. Start pulling, bearing down, wrenching with straining wrists, and the cellophane gives a glassy squeak of contempt and simply holds tighter. Turn to your last line of battle, the teeth, and it calmly detaches a piece of itself that prodeeds to choke you, while, as far as you can discover, re uniting its own defenses. If you made a hole you can’t find it. (Where are the scissors, you ask? An irrelevant question. Just try to find them. The cellophane has probably wrapped them up.) Whenever we start a test of strength with this enemy of Christmas joy, we think of a sug gestion of Katherine Burt’s. She said the ideal Christmas present would be a claw, a talon with a fine sharp end to it. This could be attached to the forefing''r when attacking a cellophane-wrapped package. This only wou.d break the satanicrlly pristine grip of tills “modern convenience”—Ha! Ihe gadget could be made of steel, iron, chrome, or silver or gold for the mink-Chase Bank trade. Just so it was strong and sharp and mean. But scotch tape, now, that’s an other story. One of the great in ventions of the ages. But natur ally: It’s Scotch, isn’t it? Here’s to Scotch Tape and a Happy 1962! The PILOT Published Every Thursday by THE PILOT, Incorporated Southern Pines, North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYD—1944 Katharine Boyd Editor C. Benedict Associate Editor ,Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr. C. G. Council Advertising Mary Scott Newton Business Mary Evelyn de Nissoff Society Composing Room Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Thomas Mattocks and James E. Pate. Subscription Rates Moore County One Year $4.00 Outside Moore County One Year' $5.00 Second-class Postage paid at Southern Pines, N. C. ♦ c Member National Editorial Assn, and N. C. Press Assn. '