MOB DOG CATCHERS
ONE RUNS TO POLICE STATION
WITH 200 AT HEELS.
TEAM DRAGS A WOMAN
MRS. IDA CAMPBELL INJURED
RESCUING SPITZ PUP.
She and Daughter Engage Three Men
in Hot Argument and She Is
Struck in the Face With
Driver's Lash -- Men
Quickly Gather.
With a mob of 200 men and women at his heels, Harry Brooks, a dog catcher, ran from Twelfth and Cherry streets to No. 4 police station, Fifteenth and Walnut streets, at 6 o'clock last night. Fifteen policemen were used to hold the crowd at bay even after the man was inside the station. If it had not been roll-call time, with all patrolmen present to report, the crowd would have overrun the place.
Meanwhile, Jim Kincaid and William Smith, two other dogcatchers, had abandoned their team to the fury of an equally big mob that did not follow Brooks. The wagon was overturned and the horses unharnessed, while Smith and Kincaid concealed themselves.
The cause of it all, a spitz puppy, the only passenger in the wagon, escaped as the cage hit the ground and returned yelping to his home, 1108 Cherry street. The women who had fought for him, though bruised and bedraggled, welcomed him to their arms and locked him in the kitchen before they would see a police surgeon who had made an ambulance run from No. 1 station.
Mrs. Nellie Honn, and her mother, Mrs. Ida Campbell, were sitting on their front porch watching admiringly, as were their neighbors, the antics in the street of a little white puff of a dog that Mrs. Honn had recently received as a present. A rough looking wagon drove by. A pretty fox terrier running between the wheels paused to notice the spitz pup.
The terrier's attention was gracious and Mrs. Honn and the neighbors smiled interestingly. Then one of the men jumped from the wagon. He made a whipping motion toward the dogs. There was a wire in his hand and the spitz pup was caught. Then the women knew that the terrier had been a decoy.
They screamed and ran to the wagon. Mrs. Campbell saw the team was being started and seized a horse's bridle. Mrs. Honn was offering to pay the tax.
"Fifi is only 6 weeks old and I don't have to pay till he's 6 months, but here's your money," she said.
"We can't take your money, madam. You'll have to talk to the impounder," W. J. Smith, wagon foreman, replied. "Besides, there's no six month limit now. We catch 'em soon as they're able to run in the street."
Harry Brooks on the seat was applying the whip to the horses and Cherry street was gathering a crowd from the many boarding and rooming houses there that swarm with people about 6 o'clock.
Mrs. Campbell held to the horse's bit and kept her feet as the team broke into a run. The crowd was threatening and the dog catchers were anxious to get out of the hot place. Brook's' long lashed whip was hitting Mrs. Campbell as well as the horses. A stinging blow struck her in the face.
Then the horses' knees hit her and she lost her footing and was dragged along.
The street ahead of the team had become black with men. Brooks jumped from the wagon. So did the others., but Brooks was the only one the crowd took after. Stones and bricks rained after him.
"Kill the dog catcher." "Stoop him, he struck a woman." "He ran over a woman" and other such cries helped make Brooks' pace more rapid as he headed for the police station nine blocks away. His endurance was better than that of his pursuers, and when he reached the home stretch at Fourteenth and Walnut streets he himself was yelling: "Help! Help! They're trying to kill me."
Lieutenant Morley, who had just come on duty, looked out of the window. He declares that the street was crowded with running men for a block. A northbound street car was stopped by them. Then another, southbound, couldn't get through. The police roll call was postponed and all officers present went out to handle the crowd. When brooks had been made safe inside a party of police was sent to rescue the wagon and team. Their arrival brought Smith and Kincaid from cover and the wagon was righted and the team hitched. Smith drove to the station and rescued Brooks.
Mrs. Campbell's injuries were declared last night by the physicians to be serious. One shoulder and arm are much bruised and she was suffering internally. The marks of the whiplash were plain upon her face.
"But I don't believe the same men will be back for Fifi soon again," she said as she shifted a pillow under her wounded shoulder
"And Fifi was the hero of the day," she went on. "He lifted the lid of that old box and came barking, right straight to our porch."
