question: If a dog is a man’s best friend and diamonds are a girl’s best friend, what is the dumbest sex?
Being of male persuasion, I lean towards canines and thus appreciate the origin of the exalted title bestowed on them.
It all started in Warrensburg, Missouri, in 1869 when a dog named Old Drum was shot and killed by one Dick Ferguson, a ward of Leonidas Hornsby, a sheep farmer.
Hornsby had lost several sheep to the dogs and let it be known that he would shoot the next dog that came to his property. That dog was Old Drum, a prized hound well known throughout Johnson County for his keen sense of smell and hunting prowess.
Old Drum was owned by Charles Burden, Hornsby’s brother-in-law and neighbor. Burden demanded a reward for the loss of his skilled animal. Hornsby refused, claiming that he was justified in protecting his valuable sheep.
Burden went to the local justice of the peace seeking redress. He was informed that the maximum damages allowed for a dog was $ 50, roughly $ 200 in today’s money. The charge then brought against Hornsby for that amount in Common Pleas Court.
There was no animosity between the two men, before or after a series of subsequent legal trials. However, the two men persisted in a costly battle to defend their rights.
At trial, the judge ruled in Hornsby’s favor. Burden appealed, lost and appealed again.
Eventually, the case reached the State Circuit Court in Warrensburg for jury trial on September 23, 1870. Hornsby was represented by two prominent attorneys, well known for their persuasive skills.
Necklace. Wells Blodgett and his partner, the local attorneys, represented Burden, but were pessimistic about his chances against the powerful defense team that had prevailed in the other trials. .
By chance that day, Vest was in court on another legal matter. He had been elected to the Missouri House of Representatives, but moved south to join the Confederacy during the Civil War, also known as the War Between the States. After the war, Vest returned to law practice and was recognized as an accomplished speaker.
Burden implored Vest to come on board as special counsel with his other two attorneys.
Vest, a dog owner, agreed. It is said that he swore to “apologize to all the dogs in Missouri” if he did not vindicate Old Drum.
Blodgett spoke first. The two defense attorneys later claimed that it was “ridiculous to make so much noise with a worthless dog.” The jury did not seem impressed with all the arguments, for or against.
Ignoring the plaintiff’s charges and defense testimony, Vest opened his summary with spontaneous comments to the jury. It was made up of men who had probably also loved hunting dogs.
* * *
“Gentlemen of the jury, the best friend a man has in the world can turn against him and become his enemy. Your son or daughter who you have raised with loving care may turn out to be ungrateful.
“Those closest and dearest to us, those in whom we trust our happiness and our good name, can become traitors to their faith.
“The money that a man has, he can lose. It escapes you, perhaps when you need it most. A man’s reputation can be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action.
“People who tend to fall to their knees to honor us when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure sets its cloud over our heads.
“The only absolutely disinterested friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one who never leaves him, the one who is never ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.
“A man’s dog is by his side in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in disease. He will sleep on the cold ground, where winter winds blow and snow runs fiercely, if only he could be close to the side of his master.
“He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that arise in the encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards his poor master’s sleep as if he were a prince.
“When all other friends desert, he remains. When the rich take wings and reputation falls apart, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.
“If fortune drives the master to an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog does not ask for a greater privilege than to accompany him, protect him from danger, fight his enemies.
“And when the last scene of all arrives, and death takes the master in its embrace, and his body is deposited on the cold ground, it does not matter if all the other friends continue on his way, there, next to the grave, will be the noble dog found, with its head between its paws, eyes sad but open in vigilant alert, faithful and faithful until death “.
* * *
Thomas Crittenden, Hornsby’s lead attorney and later Missouri governor, recalled the courtroom scene.
“Vest seemed to remember from history all the cases in which dogs had shown intelligence and fidelity to man. He quoted more lines of poetry about dogs than I supposed had ever been written.
“He crowned the monument that he had created by quoting from the Bible about the dog that calmed the sores of the beggar Lazarus while he was sitting at the rich man’s door.
“It was the most perfect oratory that has ever been heard from a pulpit or a bar. The court, the jury, the lawyers and the audience were delighted. I looked at the jury and saw that they were all crying. The foreman cried as if he had lost to your dearest friend.
“I told Hornsby and my partner we’d better get out of court or they’d hang us.”
The jury returned a unanimous verdict and recommended $ 550 in damages. When the judge regained his wits, he reduced the sentence to the legal limit of $ 50. Hornsby appealed the verdict to the Missouri Supreme Court, but was denied.
It was Vest’s “In Praise of Old Drum” that originated the saying, “A man’s best friend is his dog.” He propelled Vest to United States Senator, the four-legged plaintiff to immortality, and the city of Warrensburg to a national shrine.
