Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 214, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1912 — Homes Disrupted and City Divided By Lobster [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Homes Disrupted and City Divided By Lobster

Philadelphia.— This city is agitated as over a question which baffles solution. Wherever one goes it is being discussed. Arguments have arisen, fights have followed and arrests resulted. Homes have become disrupted and the whole city is practically divided into two factions. The question is: "What is a lobster?” . It was handed up to a higher court * here the other day by a police magistrate after he had spent a week in conferring with the leading lobster authorities all over the country. * The case is John Hauducaur, a chef in a local hotel, who.was arrested on a charge of cruelty to animals for placing a wooden peg in the first joint bach of the claw of a lobster to prevent it from snapping. The case was argued today before Police Magistrate Haggerty by two lawyers, an amateur fisherman from Maine, a member 67 the cruelty society and the proprietor of the hotel. The fisherman declared that he was well acquainted with lobsters and that he n*ver knew one that lived in salt water that could feei pain. The at-

torney for the society then pleaded that all animals experienced pain and that the chef was guilty of cruelty. The defense argued that tbe charge fell because the {lobster is not an animal. Then the same argument that caused the adjournment of court a week ago arose and the magistrate threw his hands up In despair. “It's too much for me," he said, “I’ll hold the defendant in SIOO bonds and let the court decide the matter. When the action of the court was announced, several fights occurred in various saloons where wagers had been placed ontheouterv.eof tbs case. In the .meantime the defense it planning to make a bitter fight and to carry tha case up as high* as it will go, provided, a judgment is rendered against the chef. .•