The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-03-27
DOGS AND LIBRARIES.
New England Literature as a By
Product of Love of Canine Pets.

A tradition of Massachusetts is con-
neoted with this bromidion out of the
country newspaper mans handbook
which gets into print frequently in this
season when town meetings abound
'The dog fund was voted to the public
library"
Rosalind exclaims in one of her
moods that she hasn't a word to throw
at a dog. She might have shown less
scern for dogs and their relation to
words, printed words, 1t least. if she
had been a New England girl depend
ent upon the town library for her light
fiction.
For the libraries of some Massachu-
setts towns are supported in part by
the dogs. TO be sure, it Is the duly
licensed and therefore respectable dogs
that have their being in the interest
of Libraries. and in view of this fact
Rosalind could no doubt have cast a
waste word to a wandering cur with
out setting astir any %scruples in the
thought hat she had wounded the feel
ings of a b%enefactor.
Dogs that live under the law in Mas
sachusetts are licensed annually by the
city or town clerk, upon the payment of
a 50 fee. Twenty cents of this is al
lowed to the clerk for issuing re-
cording the license. After collecting
the fees and deducting his share, the
clerk turns the money over to the coun-
ty treasurer, who Keeps a dog fund,
out of which all claims for damages
caused by the dogs of the county are
paid upon the order of the county COM
m~issioners.
The fifty-nine cities and towns Of
Worcester County gathered over $35. 800
in dog license fees in 1907. The total
claims and expenses footed $4,13S.2S or
about II per cent. of the receipts, leav-
ing SO per cent. of the original remit
tances to be returned to the f%ifty-nine
cities and towns.
The sums returned cannot be merged
in the cash assets of the various NUM-
cipalities, but in accordance with a
State law must be expended for the
support of either public libraries or
schools. In the cities one seldom knows
for which of the alternative objects the
money has been used, unless he has
curiosity enough to look into the Off
cial reports, which would be a deal of
curiosity indeed in a city. In the coun-
try one is less likely to escape the mat
ter, for year after a in the yard
long warrant for the annual town meet
ing there appears the item or article:
ITO see what disposition the town
will make of the dog fund the ensuing
year"
AS the schools call for a definite APP
nrOnria finn n lie ftclral Iu found rom
to select the library as the re-
of the fund. Some towns make
other official provision for their Ii
braries, but in others where no little
Yankee sentiment-or lack of sentiment
prevails and where there is a ten
dency to regard the library as a super
fluffy to be tolerated, and not at all as
a necessity to be classed with stone
bridges, a s~torehouse for the road
scraper, the salaries of the Selectmen
and other accredited bulwarks of the
body polite, even the dog money is
over begrudgingly, as far as
citizens are concerned.
Now and then a worthy of a Massa-
town will be heard to declare
before the assembly in the village
store at mail time that "the library is a
udr1eu nuisance dHynOW, lOI NASH I liz
gone home nan a time after getting
the evening paper to find his wife read
ing one of those profitless library books
and no supper ON the table, not even
the tea being het?
Even in the c~rabbedest New England
one hears now no religious objec>
ton TO the libraries as a means to
novel reading, although now and then
middle-aged woman of unim-
peachable rectitude conceives it her
duty to have some new novel barred
by the library authorities, in order to
others from the immoralities
she has found in it. And as the au-
thorities are usually quite as %respecta-
BILE as she, the book is likely to be "out'
when it is asked for thereafter.-New
York Sun.