A regular feature looking back at what was being printed around 100 years ago in the Bristol Daily Courier. This week’s entry comes from the August 12, 1920 edition of the newspaper.
Bristol Police Department Starts War On Goats
These sultry days it’s an especially easy task to “get somebody’s goat.” But just at present police department is engaged in getting the goats of various persons, and officers give forth the assurance that the goat is anything but an easy task. T
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he goats which the police department engaged in rounding up are of the real live, honest to good news variety – the kind that consumes tin cans for breakfast, the contents of the family wash line for lunch, and the finest shrubbery on lawn for its chief repast of the day. It’s the fact that so many fine plants and flowers have fallen victim to the rapacious appetite of His Goatship that has all his trouble.
Residents uptown have submitted the chief complaint It’s rather easy to keep the goats out of yards where there are fences, but it’s an entirely proposition to teach them that they mustn’t trespass upon property where are no barrier to keep them out. The visitors are not content with eating up plants and flowers; they insist upon tearing up grass and raising Cain in general.
Anyhow, a complaint has gone up and henceforth, again the life of the poor goat promises to be anything but interesting The police department has buttressed the borough pound. The officers each been supplied with stretches of inch rope with which to lasso recalcitrant animals, and the goat hunt is on.
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One wise policeman yesterday decided to take no chances of making himself ridiculous. He saw the goat, but lacked equipment to make it a prisoner so he “shooed” it, and followed it home, learning that its home was on Grant Avenue. Then Chief Sackville summoned the owner thereof, and last night indignant Italian citizen wan compelled to pay a fine of $5. He explained that had taken the goat to work with him – he toils for the Pennsylvania Railroad – and declared that he had tied it along the track, but that some boys must have cut the rope. The excuse failed to “get buy” and the man paid the amount involved.
The police department will strictly enforce the ordinance, and will keep up its crusade until the streets are again clear of the goats. There will undoubtedly be arrests and fines until the owners of the goats learn to them fully in custody.
An advertisement from the August 12, 1920 edition of the Bristol Daily Courier:
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