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Show DOGS. Should the ordinance in relation to dogs be enforced? Editor Journal.-When in the course of human events it seemed wisdom to the minds of our City Council to levy a tax upon dogs there was, perhaps, no citizen of Logan who more appreciated the justice and ?? of that measure than did your humble correspondent. "At last," we thought, "that happy, golden time has arrived when pedestrians can walk the streets in security; when neither the antics of some fierce brute shall excite our terror, nor his appearance our disgust. The ungovernable cur which so often obstructs our passage homeward, and has forced us many a time to make a circuit of the block in order to avoid an encounter, we shall dread no more, since his owner is neither able to pay his tax nor to buy him a collar." So pleased were we, in fact, with this beneficent legislation that we awaited the notice from our City Marshal with some anxiety, and immediately upon its publication some two months ago, made our appearance before the Recorder with a bull pup, a present from a friend in Hyrum, to have him assessed. We paid the tax with alacrity, and on our way homeward stopped at McAllister's shop to purchase him a collar. This done our mind was at ease; we had subjected ourselves to the law, and met its requirements promptly. We only hoped that everyone else would do the same. Well, Mr. Editor, our hopes were in vain; two weeks elapsed and the number of dog collars in our streets did not increase, nor did the number of canines decrease. We were still pursued by our neighbor's mastiff, whose owner continually boasted that "he hadn't paid any dog tax and he warnt going to, either!" Our choler was a trifle aroused at this but we solaced ourselves with the reflection that the strong arm of the law would silence his boasting. In a little while another notice appeared, from the Marshal, requiring all owners of dogs to march up and pay faxes upon them during the next ten days, or they would be dealt with according to law. What that law is has not yet appeared, for the ten days elapsed and the dogs were still untaxed. About this time it occurred to us that we had been rash in forming such glowing opinions of our city government, and that the money we had paid for our pup might with propriety have been kept in our own pocket. However, in due time still another intimation appeared signed by James Adams, City Marshal, stating that "Persons residing within the corporate limits of Logan City who should, but have not yet complied with the ordinance of said city in relation to dogs, are hereby notified that failing to comply with said ordinance within ten days from the date of this notice, they will be dealt with according to law." Mr. Editor, we will confess that seeing this notice so replicated we were tempted, in a fit of anger, to pluck it from the wall! And yet in a week or two after its publication still a fourth may appear, which will hold firmly to the clause that taxes must be paid within ten days from notice, etc. This manifesto will excite not our anger but our contempt. Some time has elapsed since the third was posted in view and we are looking every day in expectation of seeing its successors. The question next presented itself: Who is this City Marshal that insults the intelligence of Logan by holding up its laws to sneers and opprobrium of law-breakers? Is he a mere block-a figure-head, from which we learn what should be, but not what will be done? And what of the persons upon whom the title of city fathers has been conferred? Are they a set of easy-going, comfortable old fellows, who sit in their arm chairs, complacently twirling their moustaches, and imagine they do all that is required of them when they pass ordinances by a two-thirds majority? Is our city government a farce, and the actors simply amateurs, anxious to get through their parts with as little trouble to themselves as possible? If such be the case-if our laws are made only to be ridiculed, if our City Marshal is one whose sole duty consists in squandering the public money by printing absurd notices, it is time that the public was made aware of these facts, that taxes should not be extorted from one unless they are collected from all, in other words, that we do not have the shadow of laws but the reality. There are at the present time, perhaps, between two and three hundred dogs in Logan, and we are safe in asserting that five-sixths of them ought to be exterminated. There is scarcely a good looking or an intelligent dog among them all. But the persons owning them have, no doubt, higher conceptions of their worth than we have and it might not be a difficult matter for an efficient officer to collect taxes from at least three-fourths of the number. This would make a very respectable sum, and at all events it would help defray the expenses of printing and collecting. As it is, however, we are told there are from twenty-five to thirty dogs only, upon whose ?? a price has been set. Mr. Editor, if publishing this communication will have a tendency to arouse our officers to greater exertions of diligence, the end will have been obtained which incited the composition of this article. A Tax (Dog) Payer, Logan Oct. 9th. |