Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1879-06-19
Tom Ewing RabId on Dogs.


Democratic State Convention, and in a
speech, which was unfortunately lost to
the world, owing to the great confusion.
put Gen. Tom Ewing in nomination as
the Democratic candidate for Governor,
he must have been wholly unconscious
of proposition offered by that gentle
men in the Constitutional Convention
that chad the Constitution been ratified)
would have put it in the power Of any
county or township in the State to sweep
out of existence all the dogs within their
limits. Even Col Harris pet hunters
could not have been saved from the be-
SOM of destruction.
Mr.. Ewing's aversion to dogs was so
great that when the Convention came
to consider the article on county and
township organizations, he offered the
following as an amendment to the sec
ton giving counties and townships GER
tain powers of local taxation and assess
ment:
Townships may be authorized by spe-
cial law to destroy dogs and other pre-
datory animals, or tax them without re-
gard to their value in money"
And he supported his proposition in
speech that may be regarded as one of
the ablest of his life, and which is chief
ly characterized by his virulent antipa-
thy to dogs. 1t was in vain pleaded by
other members of the convention that
the Constitution Of 1851 provides that
all taxes shall be levied according to the
value of property and that the attention
of the member from Fairfield was called
to an existing statute, authorizing any
person to kill dog, if found running at
large off the premises of the owner,
without being accompanied by his mas
ter. 1t was in vain that another mem
Der objected to giving such legislative
power to townships, authorizing them to
violate the great principle of equality in
taxation, and that still another objected
to the classification of these faithful
friends of man with predatory animals.
Gen. Ewing insisted in pressing his
amendment, and was ably supported by
Mr. Barnabas Burns, of Richland, anoth-
er thriving Democrat, whose only objec-
ton to the amendment was that it was
not extended to cities and villages, so as
to make clean sweep of dogs.
After spirited and in some points
almost pathetic debate, consuming a
days session, Ewing's proposition was
adopted to Is, after Mr.. Adam Clay's
amendment: "But no dog charged with
killing sheep shall be killed without first
having fair trial by jury been
50 contemptuoasly treated that he was
forced to withdraw it.
Now, in order to get at and exterini-
nate all the dogs, Mr.. Ewing violated
the scientific classification of dogs among
domestic animals, denied the great right
/ of trial by jury, and proposed to violate
the just rule for levying taxes. 1t was
unjust to the dogs to stigmatize them as
predatory, and it was unfair to their
owners to authorize townships to tax
them without regard to their value.
Mr.. Miner justly characterized the
proposition as giving an "indiscriminate
right to KILL, licensing multitudinous
slaughter, and excessive and, therefore,
OdiOus taxation; and he impressively
pointed out the mischievous consequent
ces of such license. 1t would lead to
strife and retaliation, neighborhood
quarrels and feuds, general exaspera-
tiOn, social disruption, and other evils
and disorders too numerous to mention.
And there is no doubt Mr.. Miner was
right about it. From going cunning for
dogs men would have gone cunning for
each other, and the sound of the shot
gun would have been heard in moral
Paradises where nothing more unpleas-
ant than the watch-dogs welcome as
we draw near home" has ever been
heard.
Fortunately for the dogs, and for the
great principle of equal taxation, the
people of Ohio buried the new Constitu-
ton under prodigious majority, and
with it Tom Ewing's bloody scheme of
canine determination. But is not his
fault that dog remains on the soil of
Ohio to-day; while it is to be apprehen-
ded, should he be elected Governor, that
he will seek to do by proclamation what
he failed to accomplish by constitution
al methods. Commercial.