Los Angeles herald., 1905-10-02
SAYS CHILDREN
SPOIL HER DOCS
LIVELY FRACAS IN HARLEM
TENEMENT
Mistress of Pues Declares the o'Brien
Offspring Had Bad Moral
Influence on Her
Pets
Special to The Herald.

Special to The Herald
NEW YORK, Oct. Mrs. Bridget
o Brien, who has twelve children, does
not like dogs, and Mrs. Catherine Davis
who has two dogs, doesn't like children.
AS they all live in the same house the
purport of this narrative is obvious at
| the outset. After much preliminary
skirmishing, in which honors were
about even, the situation developed into
open warfare and the dogs were de-
/ feated in the first engagement. A truce
was then declared by Magistrate Wahle,
but hostilities may be resumed at any
moment.
When the case came to judicial deter
mination in the Harlem court it ap-
peared that the issue was whether or
not the O'Brien children had exercised
a bad moral influence upon the Davis
dogs or whether the dogs were no bet
ter than the children. After listening
grimly to the evidence on both sides,
Magistrate Wahle evaded a direct de-
cision but, to all intents and purposes
found in favor of the children by hold
ing Mrs. Davis under bond for her good
behavior.
Mrs. O'Brien and her dozen offspring
of both sexes and various ages, live on
the ground floor of a tenement house
at No. 2012 Third avenue. Mrs. Davis
and her two dogs, which are pugs, are
domiciled on the top floor. 1t appeared,
however, that the juvenile O'Briens, be-
ing active and healthy youngsters, with
a fondness for dogs. found no difficulty
in bridging the intervening distance
and thence arose all the trouble.
Played With the Pugs
Day after day one or another of those
O'Briens had one or both of those pugs
romping up and down the stairs, parad-
ing the streets or having other kinds Of
fun whenever Mrs. Davis was not look
ing. They had to be careful, because
they knew that Mrs. Davis objected to
them, but they were careful enough, for
she did catch them on Monday, and
then the action began.
Mrs. Davis probably is as fond of her
two pugs as Mrs. O'Brien is of her
twelve children. She says they-the
pugs, not the children-are delicate,
sensitive creatures, whose dispositions
are easily affected, and one of the tor
ments Of her life has been lest they
might suffer from association with such
boisterously healthy children as the
| O'Briens Only instead of phrasing it
that way, she said, Them tough brats
downstairs"
| So, when it came about on Monday,
when she found one of the O'Brien
"brats" swinging Gladys, which is the
name of one of the pugs, by the tail in
an areaway, and another of them feed
ing Margery, the other pug, with an
obsolete tomato on a landing of the
stairs, patience ceased to be a virtue.
After boxing the ears of the offending
| O'Briens, she rescued the pets, carried
them up stairs and put them to bed.
Then she went down to the ground floor
to exchange a few opinions with Mrs.
O'Brien.
There are reasons why the exact
phraseology of the conversation should
not be reproduced 1t is sufficient to say
that it lacked nothing in emphasis on
either side and that there were times
when both the O'Brien children and the
Davis dogs were forgotten in the fer
vor of the compliments exchanged by
the heads of the two respective house
holds. The basis of the argument, how
ever, on Mrs. Davis part was that the
moral character of her pugs was being
damaged by association with the
OBrien children. Mrs. O'Brien's retort
to this may be better imagined than
read in cold type.