Nosko's Buster

Once in a dog's age only is Adolph Ochs enabled to print in his New York Times a letter of such genuine interest as that which Josef Nosko wrote last week:

To the Editor of the New York Times:

I am superintendent of an apartment house on Seaman Avenue. Today a wagon of the A. S. P. C. A. stopped in front of this house. A man got out of the wagon and he said to me: "Have you a dog?"

I told him that I had a dog. He asked me if I had a license. I said, "No, I am a poor man. I have not had the dog long. He came in here from the street. He was hungry and I fed him. I could not find his owner, so I kept him. He is a good dog and makes no one any trouble. If a license is necessary, I will get one."

The man said: "Give me $2 now or I will take him away." I had not the $2 and I asked him to leave my dog a little while till I could get the money. But he put my dog in the wagon and drove away. The dog felt very bad to go. My wife and children were fond of the dog. He was also a good watchdog.

I ask, is it right for a society that is to protect animals from cruelty to do so? I understand it is the law to have a dog license, but that society should give me notice before taking my dog away.

Josef Nosko

New York, Jan. 30, 1930.

As was inevitable, Josef Nosko was soon bombarded with offers to pay for a dog license. His mongrel, Buster, was returned to him. Admirers sent him boxes of dog biscuits, a collar, a mouse.

If Publisher Ochs was delighted to brighten with Nosko's screed the dull squabbles or the maudlin applause of his other correspondents, he was even more delighted to observe that a controversy had been started which concerned not Josef Nosko's mongrel, Buster, but the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In the process of the controversy, as detailed in the news columns of the Times, the A. S. P. C. A. was accused of malpractices more disreputable than the theft of Nosko's Buster.

Said Assemblyman Louis A. Cuvillier: "The time has come for the State of New York to step in and prevent future cruelty to animals by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Accordingly, I have introduced a bill in the Legislature keeping this society from collecting all the dogs' licenses, fines and pensions."

One Henry Brown, who claimed to be a onetime dog license inspector said that "some had to resign" for not bringing in enough licenses, asserted that inspectors were paid on a commission basis and that each had to bring in 175 licenses or $350 per month.

Other writers claimed that A. S. P. C. A. wagons were dirty, that Buster, if returned, would have distemper, that an extra-legal dog-stealing racket existed, that the quarters in which the Society housed animals were not fit for dogs to live in.

To such comments, Merrill Hitchcock, executive secretary of the A. S. P. C. A. replied that Nosko's dog had not been seized without warning, protested the Society's fitness to administer and enforce a dog-license law, asserted that A. S. P. C. A. wagons were disinfected twice a day, but admitted license inspectors were paid with commissions.

Founded in 1886 by one Henry Bergh* the A. S. P. C. A. fulfills few of its original functions, though its purpose has not changed. In New York City it now collects all the dog taxes; its uniformed agents have police powers and carry 38 Colt revolvers, possess summons books and can prosecute offenders in magistrate court. Their duties include the collecting of stray dogs who are then penned together in metal and concrete pens and given a killing dose of carbon dioxide gas if after 48 hours they are unclaimed or deemed unfit to be given away. A. S. P. C. A. agents, aided by state police, last week broke up a cock fight at Goshen, N. Y., arrested 125 men, rescued 49 cocks. Its revenue is derived from members' dues and donations, as well as dog owners' license fees. Yearly expenditures approximate $500,000, with a deficit of $20,000, covering operations in New York City. Although a state organization, all its county agents are volunteers.

In one year, the A. S. P. C. A. examined 109,438 horses, to make sure that they were not lame, sore, unfed, overloaded, raced, abused or neglected. Horses and dogs are the main concern of the Society, though it views with alarm any neglect or abuse of cats, mistreatment of fowl, cruelty to performing monkeys, the improper caging of trained bears, failure to water circus lions, the skinning alive of rabbits. Its active members are apt to be businessmen, lawyers, smart sporting people, animal fanciers. Its president is Frank K. Sturgis. Onetime president of the National Horse Show, onetime president of the Turf and Field Club, he succeeded August Belmont as Chairman of the U. S. Jockey Club. Unlike those old ladies who feed truck horses lump sugar from paper bags in their purses, he is no sentimentalist; unlike Henry Bergh, he is a cosmopolite without being a freak. Now 83, he still summers at Newport. His stern, mustachioed countenance has changed little since the days when, a member of Strong. Sturgis & Co., he was president of the New York Stock Exchange, or those when his thoroughbreds raced at fashionable meets. A club-window face, it was often seen behind the Fifth Avenue panes of the Metropolitan Club of which, like most other organizations to which he has belonged, Frank Sturgis was once president. He is now a director of the New York Hospital, the Bloomingdale Hospital.

*Onetime Secretary of the American Legation, St. Petersburg, Russia, Founder Bergh was appalled by the beatings which droshky-moujiks administered to their horses. In London, he visited the Royal S. P. C. A. and on his return to the U. S. began moves for a similar organization. At first he made butchers driving to the abattoir untie the legs of calves, scolded horse beaters, haled cock fight fanciers into court. In 1866 he obtained a charter for the A. S. P. C. A. Later in life he suffered from dyspepsia, wrote childish plays, attended first nights at the theatre. P. T. Barnum attended his funeral in 1888

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