From the October 28, 1900 copy of the Richmond Times Dispatch :
Mr. Charles E. Barfoot had David Rowe arrested for stealing his orange-and-white hound pup.
The Great Dispenser knows much of human nature, and dreads a dog case.
The parties live on Oregon Hill, and Mr. Rowe declared he hadn’t been there long, and never had any trouble in his life until he went there. Since he lived on Oregon Hill he had slept on trouble, and had trouble for breakfast, lunch, and supper- trouble at every turn- and now he was accused of stealing his own dog.
ANIMATED SECTION
Mr. Rowe declared if anybody’s life was too stale and too slow, all he had to do was move to Oregon Hill, where animation lays around in chunks.
The Great Lawgiver declared before he opened up the case that there was no telling what a man wouldn’t do for a dog- especialy if it was in hunting season.
He enquired first about the license- always the license first. There was no license on the dog. The warrant had not been paid for, because Mr. Barfoot did not have the ready cash.
“Then in the name of General Jackson and the James river, how did you buy a dog with no money,” bawled the Great Dispenser.
Mr. Barfoot modestly declared that he had borrowed the money from a friend to buy the dog.
Mr. Rowe swore the dog was his, and that he was not orange and white at all, but a white hound, with black spots and tan ears, that he had bought from a nigger for a pistol, and that he took the dog from Mr. Barfoot’s yard, in the presence of his wife, when he had a door over the dog, and sawed wood piled over the door to keep him from getting out.
The Great Lawgiver declared that unless Mr. Barfoot could disprove Rowe’s statements, he was out 75 cents and a dog, and the nigger in a pistol and the money, and that a warrant in detinue was the proper caper in the case.
Editor’s note: I left the term “n-word” in this account as that what was printed in the record and what was commonly used in that time period. Certainly, I recognize that today that term is considered a racist epithet and I do not mean any offense with this historical post.
