The Dead Dog Wars

What do you get when you mix Swedish feminists, English medical students, anti-vivisectionists, a dead terrier, and crowd-funded memorials?

Answer: Some Strange Company-level mayhem.

Our story begins in 1903, with two Swedish anti-vivisectionists, Louise Lind-af-Hageby and Leisa Schartau.  Since 1876, England had strict regulations regarding the use of animals for scientific experiments, so the two activists enrolled in the London School of Medicine for Women to make sure the institution was following the rules.

One day, the pair attended a lecture by Dr. William Bayliss, where the aim was to show that salivary pressure was unconnected to blood pressure.  To demonstrate this, Dr. Bayliss electrically stimulated a living dog’s salivary gland.  In order for this to be legal, the dog would have to be anesthetized, and could not be experimented on more than once.  According to the two Swedes, these rules were flagrantly ignored.  They claimed that the dog--a small brown terrier--was conscious during the procedure, and a scar on his body proved he had previously been operated upon.  They added with righteous disgust that when the poor dog tried to escape, the other medical students burst into laughter.

The Swedes brought their charges to a prominent anti-vivisectionist lawyer, Stephen Coleridge, who repeated their allegations in a public speech which was widely reported in the newspapers.  "If this is not torture,” Coleridge thundered, “let Mr. Bayliss and his friends...tell us in Heaven's name what torture is."  When Bayliss heard of this, he sued Coleridge for libel.  The four-day trial opened on November 11, 1903.

One of the witnesses, a professor at University College London named Ernest Starling, admitted that he too had performed a demonstration on the terrier, but he insisted that the dog had been anesthetized during both procedures.  It would, he stated, have been impossible to perform these demonstrations on a conscious animal.  It was also learned that the unfortunate terrier was later killed by a medical student who did not have a license to perform euthanizations.  (A particularly horrific detail: the student had not even bothered to chloroform the dog to death, instead dispatching the animal with a knife through the heart.)

Despite these damaging admissions, the defense was doomed when Coleridge admitted under oath that he had not made any attempt to verify the women’s accusations before making them public.  The jury ruled in favor of Dr. Bayliss, awarding him damages equivalent to over five hundred thousand dollars in modern U.S. currency.  However,  this was hardly the end of the controversy.  Rather, you could say it was merely the beginning.

Coleridge set up the early 20th century version of a GoFundMe to raise the court-ordered payment, which was wildly successful.  (Bayliss donated it all to his university for medical research, which must have irritated Coleridge and his supporters no end.)

The anti-vivisectionists then decided there should be a memorial to the dead terrier.  They planned to build a fountain with a statue of the martyred pup, with the inscription, “In memory of the Brown Terrier Dog done to Death in the Laboratories of University College in February 1903, having endured Vivisection extending over more than two months and having been handed from one Vivisecteur to another till Death came to his Release.  Also in Memory of the 232 dogs vivisected at the same place during the year 1902.  Men and Women of England, how long shall these things be?”

In other words, put that in your pipe and smoke it, Bayliss.

These activists had a hard time finding a local council willing to take such a controversial monument, but in 1906, Battersea, famed for its dogs’ home, agreed to host the statue.  Among the guests at the great unveiling was George Bernard Shaw.

Via Wikipedia

Local medical students--perceiving, quite correctly, that they were being insulted to their faces--did not take this quietly.  Night after night, bands of medical students would try to destroy the monument, only to be confronted by equally angry crowds of trade unionists, feminists, and animal lovers, all of whom identified with the helpless, abused terrier.  Confrontations between the two sides grew so violent that a standing police guard was assigned to the statue.

More and more people joined the sides either supporting or opposing the statue.  The climax was reached on December 10, 1907, when hundreds of pro and anti-canine forces clashed in Trafalgar Square, in what has gone down in history as the Brown Dog Riots.  400 police were needed to quell the battle.

Following the melee, Battersea Council decided the statue was more trouble than it was worth.  In 1910, they had the monument destroyed.  (Public sentiment was still so strong that it was thought necessary to deploy a guard of 120 police to protect the workmen.)  Today, all that remains of one of England’s more unusual statues is a sad little mound and a nearby sign that reads--accurately enough--”No dogs.”  The lingering effects of this canine cause célèbre are illustrated by the fact that as late as 1985, a new statue of the dog was erected in Battersea Park, paid for by anti-vivisection groups.  (The British Medical Journal condemned the memorial as “libelous.”)

Dog Memorial 2.0, via Wikipedia

RIP, nameless little brown terrier.  Although all earthly trace of you is gone, you certainly have not been forgotten.

The Porteous Riot; Or, Why Some People Should Just Stick to Golf

James Drummond, "The Porteous Mob," 1855

Historically speaking, many large-scale riots seem almost unpreventable, or, at least, unforeseeable. A series of unlucky or tragic events suddenly coalesces into mass violence, and it is difficult to say who could have prevented it, or how. No one person was at fault.

An exception is Edinburgh's most notorious public disturbance, which has gone down in history as "The Porteous Riot." In this incident, it was argued at the time that the violent and fatal commotion could all be laid at the feet of one man's arrogant and thoughtless behavior.

And in the end, he paid a very high price for his errors in judgment.

The origin of our story lies in that age-old practice of smuggling, which was a particularly common activity in18th century Scotland. Fierce resentment of the high taxes imposed by the government in London caused Scots to treat those who provided them with contraband goods as heroes, even patriots. It wasn't just a question of getting a bargain; smuggling was seen as a sign of national independence from that despised Sassenach regime. England, recognizing that smuggling was as much a political issue as it was a financial concern, was doubly determined to crack down on the smugglers. When captured, the lawbreakers would not just be imprisoned, they would be hanged as traitors.

One of the era's most well-known and successful smugglers was Andrew Wilson, who operated out of the village of Pathhead, about twelve miles from Scotland's capital. His skill and popularity among his countrymen made him London's number one target for destruction. In February 1736, Wilson and two cronies, George Robertson and William Hall, burgled the residence of James Stark, a local customs duty collector. This was done out of revenge for Stark having seized some of Wilson's smuggled goods a short time back. As far as Wilson was concerned, he was merely evening the score.

As the authorities were well aware of Wilson's personal grudge against Stark, he became the prime suspect for the theft. Within three days, the smuggler and his confederates were arrested. On March 2, after a short and pro forma trial, all three were condemned to hang on April 14th. (Hall's sentence was later commuted to transportation to America.)

Wilson did not accept his sentence meekly. He, as well as a lot of other Scots, felt he was not a common criminal, but a political martyr. He was determined to make his escape. Allies managed to sneak a saw and a heavy knife to him, tools that he and Robertson used to saw through the bars of their cell window. Robertson was able to squeeze through the gap they had made, but unfortunately for Wilson, he was a "squat, round man." When he tried to make his way through the opening, he became stuck, unable to go either all the way out or back inside his cell. Before Robertson could free him, the guard was alerted, bringing the flight to freedom to a highly embarrassing end.

Wilson was doubly depressed over his failure. Not only had he lost his last chance to save his own neck, but he felt he had forfeited Robertson's as well. Although he accepted his grisly fate, he was determined that his friend should still find a way to escape. A characteristically audacious plan formed in his mind.

Three days before their scheduled execution, Wilson and Robertson were escorted to the Tolbooth church to hear their final Sunday service. When the proceedings were about to commence, Wilson made his move. He threw himself on their three guards, using all his considerable strength to hold them down. "Geordie, do for thy life!" he shouted.

Robertson followed this sage advice. He ran, and did not stop running until he was able to hide himself in Edinburgh's dark, twisting alleys. The citizens were more than happy to offer him shelter from the authorities. Wilson, of course, was soon overpowered, but he no longer cared. He had accomplished his goal.

Wilson's act of self-sacrifice made him even more of a hero in Edinburgh. Anger over what was seen as his totally unjust death sentence grew. As the date of Wilson's hanging approached, authorities became increasingly concerned about the public mood. They feared there would be an attempt to rescue the condemned man on the way to the gallows. John Porteous, one of the three captains of the City Guard, was given orders to have the 25 men under his command monitor the execution site and swiftly put down any signs of dangerous mutiny among the spectators. For good measure, the magistrates brought in a detachment of 150 men from the Royal Welsh Fuseliers.

Edinburgh City Guard

The 41-year-old Porteous could not be called a pleasant character. He had obtained his promotion to captain not from merit, but from influence--the job was his payoff for being willing to marry the Lord Provost's cast-off mistress, Isobel Gordon. Porteous was one of those people who are put in a position of authority, and come to enjoy their power rather too well. To put it more plainly, he was a harsh, officious bully who did not scruple to use physical violence on those unlucky enough to come into his custody. His insensitive and tyrannical nature had made him the most well-hated figure in Edinburgh. He was the worst possible choice to be put in charge of controlling an already hostile and indignant crowd.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, Porteous had a particular animosity towards the condemned man. He saw Wilson's engineering of Robertson's escape as an insult, a grave offense against his authority. It was said that while Wilson was in his custody, Porteous had inflicted savage physical revenge on the prisoner that virtually amounted to torture--a rumor that made Edinburghians all the more outraged.

Site of Wilson's execution

When April 14th arrived, the large crowd around the scaffold was grim, but silent and orderly. Somewhat to the authorities' surprise, the death sentence was carried out without incident.

The trouble began after Wilson was hanged. When the hangman moved to cut down the body of the man Edinburgh had liked and admired, this final indignity caused the crowd's buried wrath to bubble over. Infuriated citizens began throwing stones and clods of dirt at the City Guard. The hangman received such a volley of missiles that he fled. (He had to be put under police protection.) Spectators began rushing the gallows, determined to cut Wilson down and try to revive him, or at least give his body an honorable burial. The situation was dangerously near to going completely out of control.

What happened next is disputed, which is unsurprising, given the chaotic scene. Most reports state that Porteous, instead of working to pacify the crowd, behaved in a way guaranteed to bring on disaster. Furious at this show of open insubordination, he grabbed a musket and fired it at the mob. A young man named Charles Husband fell down dead.

Porteous ordered his troops to fire warning shots over the crowd, which only succeeded in hitting several spectators in the tenement buildings opposite them. When this only added to the uproar, he insisted that his men shoot directly at the horde, threatening the reluctant soldiers with disciplinary charges if they disobeyed. Three people were instantly killed, and at least twelve wounded. The confusion this caused among the crowd enabled Porteous to order a retreat. The Guard began to flee, with the now thoroughly inflamed mob in hot pursuit. Porteous gave another order to fire at the multitude, which resulted in three more deaths and great many other casualties. This just spurred the crowd on. Their goal now was not merely to mourn Wilson's death. They wanted revenge, and their target was Captain Porteous. If the onlookers had managed to get their hands on him at that moment, he would have been quickly torn to pieces.

Porteous made his report to a meeting of the city magistrates, only to find he was no more popular there than he had been among the mob. The magistrates were furious at the debacle, and had no desire to offer him much support. By the time the riot had quelled down, at least nine people were dead and some twenty more seriously injured. The official inquiry into the tragedy led to Porteous facing charges of manslaughter, maiming, and murder.

Porteous' trial took place on July 5-9, 1736. He pleaded self-defense, and brought in witnesses who testified that he had not personally fired into the crowd. (Crown witnesses, naturally, asserted the reverse.) Although by the letter of the law, the defendant had a strong case, public sentiment was so against him that his conviction was virtually a foregone conclusion. It was decreed that on September 8, Porteous would follow Wilson to the gallows.

Although this verdict was welcomed in Scotland, London felt otherwise. His Majesty's government felt that Porteous' actions had been entirely called-for in the circumstances. Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole granted Porteous a six-week reprieve. It was believed that a full pardon would soon follow.

The news that the Porteous would escape the noose after all outraged Edinburgh. The thought of the hated London government butting in to save a man they held responsible for the death of Scottish citizens just added further fuel to the public fire. A group of men--some of them holding prominent positions in Edinburgh society--secretly made their plans, determined that Porteous would not escape the punishment they felt he well deserved. These vigilantes spread the word that on September 8, they would assault the Tolbooth and deliver their own form of justice to the prisoner. Naturally, the authorities planned to have extra guards at the prison on that night.

The rumored date was, however, merely a ruse. On the night of September 7, some four thousand men quietly marched on Edinburgh, taking the castle garrison completely off-guard. The crowd broke into the City Guardhouse and emptied it of its store of weaponry. Then, they headed straight for the Tolbooth--and John Porteous. The city magistrates were helpless in the face of this very large, very well-armed, and very very determined army. The authorities sent frantic messages to all the garrisons quartered in the city, but these soldiers were disinclined to come to their aid.

By 11:30 p.m., the mob had succeeded in breaking down the prison door. After relieving the jailer of his keys, they marched on Porteous' cell. The prisoner was savagely dragged outdoors, the his captors beating and kicking him all the way. Porteous was hauled to the site where Wilson had been executed, and a makeshift gallows was swiftly erected.

The former captain had a much more agonizing end than the one delivered to Andrew Wilson. After a rope was put around his neck, Porteous was repeatedly hauled up, then quickly lowered again. All the while, members of the mob beat him and even tried setting him on fire. This slow torture lasted for nearly an hour before it finally killed him. His body was pulled up one final time--like a macabre victory flag--and left dangling there while the mob silently dispersed into the darkness.

London was indignant at the news of Porteous' grisly end, and ordered an inquiry into the affair. A reward of £200 pounds--as well as a promise of immunity--was offered for anyone who would give information about the lynching. It was all in vain. Although everyone in the city must have known who was involved in Porteous' murder, they kept that knowledge to themselves. No one was ever punished, or even publicly identified, for their part in the grim doings of September 7.

The English government settled for fining Edinburgh £2000, with the money to be paid to Porteous' widow. Probably very wisely, that lady then left Scotland for good. The Lord Provost, whom London blamed for failing to prevent the incident, was fired from his post. All the clergymen in Scotland were ordered to issue threats of arrest to anyone involved in Porteous' murder. These instructions were largely ignored. Scots tend to have long memories. Public opinion remained so bitter against John Porteous that it was not until 1973 that his grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard was given a proper headstone.

As for George Robertson, he managed to escape to Rotterdam, where he became the proprietor of a successful tavern. He also supplemented his income by acting as an informant for Scottish customs officers, giving them information on the local smugglers. According to a 1789 pamphlet, Robertson "at last got into some way with the English smugglers, and ruined many of them. The Dutch got information of him, and he took the hint and escaped over to London...he skulked about in London for some time, and got letters from those he did for in Scotland; and he applied to that hero, William Duke of Cumberland, who procured him a pardon from the King; and at last he died in misery in London."

There are no happy endings in this story.

[There is one quaint footnote to our ugly little tale. In his leisure moments, Porteous was a renowned and skillful golfer. In 1724, he and one Alexander Elphinston played the first golf match to be reported in the newspapers. Among the spectators were the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Morton, "and a great many persons of distinction." The wager was twenty guineas, with Mr. Elphinston coming out the winner. Scottish true crime historian William Roughead's last word on Porteous was, "one would fain hope that such a good golfer was not so great a rogue."]

The Great Rocking Chair Rebellion

One fine day in the spring of 1901, a fellow named Oscar F. Spate strolled into the office of George C. Clausen, president of New York City's Park Commission, with a business proposition. Spate wished to set up a few comfortable chairs in the city parks and charge people a small sum for using them. It was, he explained, already a normal practice in Europe, and would prove to be very beneficial for the city's ever-needy coffers.

Mr. Spate, so we are told, was a complete stranger to Mr. Clausen, but the idea sounded splendid to this enterprising public servant. On the spot, with no further reflection or questions asked, Clausen granted Spate a five-year contract. Spate would pay the city of New York $500 a year for the privilege of setting up his little business in Manhattan and Staten Island.

It would prove to be highly unfortunate that Clausen did not bother to vet his new business partner before entering into this arrangement. Spate was one of those sprightly souls with a colorful past. As an example, here is the story that first brought him into the public eye, eight years earlier:

San Francisco Call, Dec. 31, 1893

Clausen also seems to have been unaware of the fact that his new-found friend was not, as he had intimated, a successful entrepreneur, but an energetic, if remarkably unsuccessful grifter who had recently filed for bankruptcy after a scheme to sell fake "fine Persian rugs" collapsed. Ah, well. On with our story:

On June 22, visitors to Central Park were delighted to find, rather than the usual uncomfortable wooden benches, rows of highly inviting-looking apple-green rocking chairs. However, just as the weary citizens were getting settled into these unexpected civic improvements, several men wearing imposing gray uniforms suddenly appeared. They demanded that every occupant of those rockers hand over five cents. Everyone who refused was rudely evicted from the seats. To every expression of anger or confusion, these gentleman had but one answer: "Them's Mr. Spate's chairs."

When word of the contretemps reached the ears of the New York press, a few journalists went to have a word with the mysterious Mr. Spate. From his office in the St. James Building, the new Rocking Chair King calmly explained: "I'll put in as many chairs as the Park Board will allow. The attendants who collect the charges are in my pay. They will wear gray uniforms, and each will look after about fifty chairs, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. A five-cent ticket entitles the holder to sit in either a five-cent or a three-cent chair in any park at any time during that one day, but the holder of a three-cent ticket can sit only in a three-cent chair."

If Spate had stuck to that statement, all might have been well for him. Unfortunately, he added a few highly insulting comments about how his system would keep "lazy loungers, none too clean," (i.e. anyone too poor to pay for a seat,) out of the more desirable areas of the parks.

The politicians of New York were well aware that many of those lazy loungers voted, and they rose in a body to decry this slur on the indigent, and attack these heartless attempts to deprive them of one of their few free recreations. The president of the Municipal Council denounced the idea that private parties could make money by occupying public ground. Union leaders asked sarcastically if the next step was to barricade the parks against anyone under a certain income bracket, and added some very hard words denouncing Spate and his enabler, the increasingly unpopular president Clausen. The "New York Tribune" snorted that the fiasco was "only another instance of the hopeless stupidity of the present Park Commission."

Spate was undeterred. His response to the controversy was to put out even more of his now-infamous green rockers, and anyone who tried to sit in them without buying a ticket was ejected with increasing severity by his henchmen.

In this atmosphere of heightened tension, a crisis was bound to erupt, and erupt it certainly did. On June 26, the city entered one of the worst heat waves in its history. By June 30, the temperature had reached 97 degrees, and twenty-four people had died from weather-related causes. On July 2, it was ninety-nine degrees in the shade. By then, two hundred deaths were reported, and city officials ordered that the parks were to be kept open 24 hours a day. New York had no relief from the blistering heat and smothering humidity until July 4, after nearly four hundred people had died.

In Russia, Napoleon was brought down by the cold.  In New York, Spate was brought down by the heat. Gothamites flocked in droves to the parks for some relief from the intolerable weather, only to find that the Park Commission, in its eternal wisdom, had removed all the free benches for repairs. The only seats that remained were Spate's apple-green rockers, cozily nestled in what little shade the parks afforded.

The Wat Tyler of this story was a man--his name, alas, lost to history--who on July 6, sat in one of Spate's rockers and flatly refused to pay. One of Spate's gray-uniformed bravos, a man named Thomas Tulley, responded by yanking the chair out from under him.

For this hot, tired, suffering crowd, that was the last straw. An ominous-looking mob quickly formed around Tulley, and talk of lynchings suddenly filled the air. Tulley, very wisely, fled. An infuriated crowd chased him through the broiling streets right up to the steps of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where the terrified henchman managed to rush upstairs and lock himself in a room. His pursuers hung around the lobby for a while, but were finally persuaded to give up their quarry and return to the park. Tulley was given a police escort home.

Later that day, a crowd in Madison Square rioted when a small boy was forced out of one of the rockers. The Spate employee responsible for this ejection was attacked, and a policeman who tried to quiet them was thrown into a fountain for his pains.

The Great Rocking Chair Rebellion was on. Spate's hated employees all ran for the hills, and for the rest of the day, New Yorkers boldly sat in the rockers at their leisure.

The next day, a crowd paraded through Central Park singing their "Marseillaise":

"We pay no more,
We pay no more;
No more we pay for park
Chairs any more.
Clausen made a break,
One summer's day;
And now he ain't
Commissioner no more."

The mob then fell on the rockers, their hated symbol of oppression, and quickly smashed a number of them to bits. One last, brave Spate worker made an effort to collect fees, but desisted when an elderly woman stabbed him with a hatpin.

July 8 was Occupy Day. A crowd of boys made the rounds of the surviving rockers, taking turns sitting on them and daring Spate's hired men to interfere. When one of them slapped a boy, it took half-a dozen policemen to get him out of the park safely.

Parks throughout New York were in full riot. Chairs were smashed, and any Spate employee foolhardy enough to show his face risked a pummeling. There were a number of arrests, until the Police Commissioner, Michael Murphy, gave orders that the officers were not to help Spate's men collect their fees, and no further rioters were to be taken in except where there were warrants duly sworn out before magistrates. The magistrates responded by saying they had no inclination to issue warrants for mere protests in the parks.

Commissioner Clausen--who was now sweating from more than just the heat--turned to that time-honored political tactic known as "passing the buck." He nervously issued a statement saying that much as he regretted the unfortunate turn matters had taken, he himself could do nothing about it. Only the Park Commission as a whole could cancel Spate's contract. Seeing that such weaseliness was doing nothing to improve his popularity, Clausen issued a new statement a few hours later reversing himself. As he had been the one to approve Spate's contract, he promised that he would be the one to break it. Spate retaliated by getting a court injunction preventing Clausen or the Park Commission from doing any such thing. The writ was soon dismissed.

Spate tried to keep his new business going by piling his chairs up in heaps and renting them out only to anyone who paid in advance. However, no sooner was a chair rented than onlookers would grab the rocker and destroy it. In between these activities, the crowd kept busy by throwing showers of stones at Spate's workers.

The tumult lasted until July 11, when Max Radt, a vice-president of the Jefferson State Bank, got the state Supreme Court to issue an injunction forbidding anyone from charging money for park seating.

Spate finally gave up. He put his surviving chairs in storage, and New York knew him no more. He tried his hand at several more grandiose schemes that went nowhere--opening a boarding-house for actors here, setting up majestic-sounding, but hollow "corporations" there--but he did not resurface in the news until 1907, when he made headlines in a characteristically singular fashion:

New York Tribune, Dec. 12, 1907

At the end of December 1907, Spate, or Seymour, (other accounts insist his real name was "Reginald Spaulding,") was released from prison. He had been jailed for thirty days for proposing "to introduce Pittsburg's wealthy people to the English nobility for a monetary consideration." He was said to also be wanted by the Montreal authorities, but as they did not bother with an extradition request, the former Rocking Chair King was released.

He expressed himself very bitterly about being deserted by his former "clients." "If Judas were alive to-day," he told the press, "he would hang himself to some Pittsburg steel magnate's family tree. The women of Pittsburg would have done anything for me when they thought I could introduce them to the British nobility, but as soon as I got into trouble they deserted me. The Bible says that woman was the last thing God made. He must have made the Pittsburg brand of women on Saturday night. It shows fatigue." He said he was on his way to London to claim his multi-million dollar estate.

The newspapers went on to say that the Pittsburg police had just received a "pitiful letter" from an elderly Englishman named Everett Weston, saying that "Spate" had taken his life savings of two hundred pounds, by persuading him to invest in "Spate's" "Turber & Co. Limited." He and his wife were now left utterly destitute. He begged the authorities to inform "Spate" of his desperate position, and persuade him to return his money, now that "Spate" was reportedly set to inherit a fortune.  We are told that "Spate got the letter but refused comment on it."

Shortly before his release from prison, the "New York Herald" commented sardonically that "Mr. Spate is thought of frequently by those who know him in this city, and they are asking what his versatile talents will lead him to do next."

The "next" was Nemesis finally catching up to Mr. Spate/Seymour/Spaulding.  In 1911, he committed suicide in Detroit, "following a Government investigation into a company he was promoting."

Returning to the Rocking Chair Rebellion, the Armistice came on July 29, 1901, when the Park Commission announced that Clausen had, out of his own pocket, bought all of Spate's chairs and presented them to the city. The chairs would be put back in the parks. Clausen particularly requested that "FREE" be painted on them in very large letters.

God bless America.