BOY LEAVES HOME
TO JOIN HIS DOG.
LAWRENCE HANSEN, PAROLED,
CAN'T BEAR SEPARATION.
Leaves at Night by Bedroom Win-
dow and Is Found Next Day
Playing in Street With
"Jack."
When Lawrence Hansen, 10 year of age, was released three weeks ago from the Detention home, where he was placed after being arrested for "playing hookey" from school, agreed to give "Jack," his fox terrier, to a neighbor. To get Lawrence away from his former bad associates, of whom one was his pet dog, Mrs. Hansen removed to Kansas City, Kas.
For two weeks following his parole Lawrence was a model boy. He attended school regularly and minded his mother. Then came the relapse. The separation from "Jack" could not be borne. Last Monday night Lawrence packed a few of his belongings, lowered them from his bedroom window, stole downstairs in his stocking feet and took $5 from his mother's dresser.
The juvenile officers in Kansas City, Mo., were warned Tuesday to be on the lookout for the boy, but not until yesterday could trace of him be found, when word came that the boy was at 410 Troost avenue where he had been seen playing with "Jack." Juvenile Officer Holt arrested the boy yesterday afternoon and took him to the Detention home.
With tears in his eyes Lawrence was taken before Dr. E. L. Mathias, chief probation officer. "Jack" had been left behind.
"I want my dog," he pleaded with the juvenile officer. "I want Jack."
When told that he could not have "Jack," he cried his eyes red. And he continued to cry for an hour after being locked up in the detention room. Finally, when told that he would never get to see the dog again unless he quit crying, the boy dried his tears and became his amiable self.
"That boy is a proposition," said Dr. Mathias. "When he has his dog he is a good boy, but he will not be separated. I expect that the dog will have to be returned to him."
"Jack" has neither pedigree nor physical attraction. The boy several months ago picked him up on a downtown street and took him home. But for all his attention, three meals a day and a blanket to sleep on, the dog could never take on the polish of society and culture. He is still an unpedigreed mongrel of the gutter, but for all that, the inseparable chum.
Arrested three weeks ago for truancy, Lawrence told the juvenile officers he would not go to school because he couldn't take "Jack." The boy and his dog were locked in the same cell, where they ate the same food and shared the same bed, three days and three nights. They were companions in misery. That disregard of law and the rights of others, engendered into the dog from his own life on the streets, was bred by association into the life of his little companion.
"Who is responsible, the boy or the dog?" is the question that the juvenile officers are asking.
Lawrence will be given a hearing next Monday in the juvenile court.
