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 Trusting Collie
        Facing Sentence
        of Death, Wins
         His Own Case

     BY ARTHUR F. DEGREVE

United New Staff Correspondent.

   KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept. 14.--
Ted, a big friendly, trusting
collie, isn't the kind of dog
that enjoys a stroll at the end
of a chain and he wrinkles a scron-
ful snout at his brothers and sis-
ters who take more than a passing
interest in the annual dog show.
   And largely because of this,
Ted's alive today.  All the boys
around the nineteenth police station
have heard his joyous bark daily;
they taught him a few tricks and
to questions the collie's happiness
was to doubt an Italian's love for
stringy spaghetti.
   Just how it all happened, prob-
ably no one ever will know but
Charles, 7-year-old son of C. D.
Minter, came home a few days
ago and said Ted had bitten him.
Minter immediately called upon J.
R. Ringo, clerk in the criminal
court and Ted's master, and de-
manded that the dog be shot.
Ring refused and the matter was
taking into south municipal court
and put up to Judge Irs S. Gard-
ner.

        COURT CROWDED

   It was unusual, this thing of
asking that a death sentence be
passed on a dog, in such a digni-
fied court as that rules over by
Jdge Gardner, and the room was
crowded.  Ted waited patiently until
his case was called.  He went below
to the nineteenth street station and
said good-bye to his friends there,
shaking hand solemnly with each,
rolling over and playing dead.
   Soon there was a whistle and
Ted walked slowly into the court-
room.  He stood before the bench
with his head cocked on one side
and when the judge has finished
reading the charges he grinned in
his friendly way at the court as
if to tell him it was all wrong.
   Judge Gardner looked anxiously
at Minter but there he met a grim
look of determination--the dog must
be shot.  And then Ted being a
friendly collie and untrained in
court room etiquette walked be-
hind the bench, put his head in the
judge's lap and looked him square-
ly in the eye while he did his best
to explain it as the friend to an-
other.

         CASE DISMISSED

   Perhaps the digniffied judge threw
back the mantle and remembered
when he led home a lost mongrel
and even though an indulgent fath-
er did say it was just another
"ornery cur" he could keep it.
Anyway, he reached out an assur-
ing hand and patted Ted on the
head.
   "I couldn't possibly order him
killed, without more evidence than
has been offered here.  He denies it
and darned if I don't believe him.
Next case."
   Spectators say Judge Gardner
could be forgiven for gulping hast-
ily.
   Ted still roams wherever he
wants to and is still scronful of
prize winners at the dog show.


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