The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1919-02-07
SUNDAY, HOUN' DOGS AND
PROHIBITION THIS WEEK
State Wide Dog Law Passes the House. But House
- Doesn't Want Special Enforcement Of Prohibi-
ton Laws. Saunders Sizes up Sunday.
BY w. o. SAUNDERS

Billy SUNDAY, nound OOgS anu
prohibition have been the chief
concern of the members of the
General Assembly this week.
Sunday had the stage Monday
night, the dogs had their day in
the House Tuesday and a heated
discussion of a bill to create the
office of State Marshall to en-
force the prohibition laws oc-
cupied most of the time of the
House Wednesday,
The House voted down the bill to
create special machinery for the en-
forcement of prohibition laws and will
leave the enforcement of the law in the
hands of Federal revenue officers, sher-
ifs of counties and municipal police
as it is now.
1t was brought out in the discussion
of the measure Wednesday that North
Carolina is notoriously the worst Of
fender of prohibition laws Of all the
states in the union. There were 1857
illicit stills destroyed by Internal Rev
enue officers in all the states of the
union in 1918. Of this number TAG, or
more than half, were destroyed in North
Carolina.
Your Representative supported the
Marshal Bill, believing that the present
machinery is insufficient to make pro-
hibition effective in North Carolina.
The Ray Dog Bill passed the House
with a whoop Tuesday. The house was
in an ugly mood and the dog stood little
show. The BILL which now goes to the
Senate, levies a tax of 81 a head on all
dogs other than female dogs and pro-
vides indemnity for persons whose
sheep or other live stock is destroyed
by prowling dogs. The commissioners
of counties are authorized to pay the
damage out of the moneys derived from
the dog tax. The commissioners may
take action against the owner of the
offending dog, to recover. But the sheep
owner gets his indemnity whether the
owner of the dog is insolvent or not;
and gets his indemnity whether the own
ership of the offending dog is deter
mined. The bill provides that owners
of dogs shall keep their dogs confined
at night, no dog permitted to run at
large at night accompanied by the own
er or other responsible person. Dogs
caught in the act of attacking or de-
stroying domestic animals may be shot
on the spot, no action to hold against
the person who kills the offending dog.
SUNDAY AT CLOSE RANGE
Your Representative had heard Billy
Sunday previously, but it was not until
Monday night that he got a closeup
view of the worlds most spectacular
evangelist. I am compelled to say that
in Billy Sundays case distance lends
enchantment to the view. One gets an
everlasting impression of his energy and
force watching him from the rear of one
of his tabernacles seating sixteen to
twenty thousand people. At such
range one may marvel at the ability of
a man who holds and sways such a
throng. But when one gets right up close
to Rev. Vim. A. Sunday and studies him
intentIy one gets some other Impress
ions. 1 am nearly convinced that Sun
kday is the cleVerest 1unatic alive. His
antics are foreign to the realms of san
ity. His tricks are the old tricks of the
patent medicine vender and his meet
ings are conducted after the fashion of
public demonstrations made by the ven
Il ders of quack nostruIhs.
The patent medicine faker employs
a minstrel to humor and entertain the
4 crowd with jokes and songs until reason
has been relegated to a point remote
from the flaring lights of the platform.
When the audience is in it's happiest
and most thoughtless frame of mind the
4 quack himself jumps the platform and
n rattles off a line of talk at a ESQ word
minute gait. The audience marVels
Il at the slibness of the talker and hangs
Z spell bound upon his Niagara of words
The Vender always has a plausible line
IA of talk and he never. fails to unload his
fake nostrums at dollar a bottle He
often ropes in the most substantial and
most tight-fisted citizens in the crowd.
Billy Sunday has man named Rode
heaVer, a baritone, soloist and from
bonist, and man named Brewster, a
tenor soloist and pianist, who supply
the free entertainment and catch the in
Eterest and good will of the crowd. Rode
heaVer is master spreader of the bo-
vine manure. He knows how to Jolly
and entertain crowd as no other show
man L have ever seen. And Sunday does
the rest. But he puts the old time quack
to shame. He doesn't sell the crowd
something for it's belly ache, back ache,
-e2iie~and corns. That were a bungle-
saIs, antiquated scheme. He makes
them believe their hearts and souls are
out of order and he sells them a thing
(which he calls old time religion. L bears
about as much resemblance to religion
as bottle of colored water bears re-
semblance to a home made mustard
plaster; but Sunday gets away with it
because he has the crowds, the music
and the backing off all pious frauds in
every community in which he operates.
Thousands are convinced that Hell
Fire Bill has the only reliable evangelical
dope because Bill himself swears that