Kind Lady

In a vacant lot in Eastchester, suburb about 16 miles from Manhattan, four handsome dogs--a white collie, a dachshund, a setter and a German shepherd ("police dog")--were at play one day fortnight ago. Up rolled a limousine and out stepped a lady who seemed to be fond of animals. She patted each friendly head, seemingly gave each dog something to eat from her handbag. Then the lady climbed back in the car, where her own sweatered Boston bull was yapping in excitement. The automobile rolled away and the four dogs continued to caper in the sun.

Soon the setter's plume drooped and he trotted slowly home. Police dog and collie also turned tail, as did the low-slung, swaybacked little dachshund. The setter's owner rushed him to a veterinarian, where he shortly died. Said the "vet": "Someone has given this dog cyanide of potassium!"

Next day the police dog had also died, and when the dachshund and collie took sick, Eastchester people began to remember other recent dog deaths and disappearances. The police turned out to hunt for "75 dogs reported missing or poisoned within the past few months."

In the midst of this hue & cry, an East-chesterite who had seen the dogs at play suddenly remembered the lady of the limousine. A license number was recalled, telephones tinkled and soon the police dog's owner had signed a complaint against Mrs. Julia Tuttle, a 65-year-old, well-to-do Larchmont widow. Late that night a detective pounded on Mrs. Tuttle's door. She was arrested on charges of dog-poisoning (for which one may be jailed a year in New York State) and taken before a Justice of the Peace, who set $500 bail after she pleaded not guilty.

In view of the public dog-poisoning hysteria, her lawyer obtained a fortnight's stay of trial. Pointing out that Mrs. Tuttle had for years been an S. P. C. A. worker, a contributor to Manhattan's famed Ellin Prince Speyer Animal Hospital, he said: "Mrs. Tuttle is the victim of an adverse public opinion. . . . Mrs. Tuttle likes dogs, and it is not unusual that she stopped to feed some."

Said Mrs. Charles H. Reisig of Larchmont, honorary president of the Larchmont-Mamaroneck Humane Society: "I was the means of having her [Mrs. Tuttle] banished from our society when it was charged that she put beautiful, expensive pets, principally cats, to death in the Larchmont police station, where they had a gas tank." Said President William Bevan of the Westchester County Animal Protective League: "I've known Mrs. Tuttle for years. . . . There must be a misunderstanding somewhere."

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