RESPECT ME, RESPECT MY DOG.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1653, 21 January 1913, Page 9

RESPECT ME, RESPECT MY DOG.

The 'amount of reverence due from a barber's Apprentice to his customer's dog was' tlie delicate question posed oil December 4 to the Seventh Chamber (writes the . Paris correspondent of tho "Daily Telegraph"). Some time ago o. dignified old gentleman entered a barber's shop, accompanied by ,Ins dog, a Trench bull terrier,, with a sinister and bloodshot eye.. "Take care," he said, in a tone of friends ly;• admonition to the barker's assjshnt, 'he may bite you." "If he , bites ms ho may bust," was the rndo retort of . this far from model apprentice. Hence wrath on the part of the owner of tho dog, and instant dismissal for the pert barber's boy, who brings an action for a week's salary in lieu of notice.'. . 1 'Court Kb. 1 fires its decision in favour of the apprentice, basing its verdict on tho solemn and lofty grounds that "though an employer, is within his rights in exacting from his apprentices a certain deference towards customers, the same cannot hold good in respect of the animals owned by their, customers, «nd that, ■ furthermore and moreover, the statement of the apprentice, f if.he bites me h« may bust,' wns n reflection rather on .its author than on the nnimal to which it was addressed." This seems sound reasoning, for if the apprentice's statement meant anything at : all. it could only mean that "The man recovered from the bite, The dog if; was that died." However, there was an ippeal to d higher court, and after eloquent harangues by maitres Arnaud and Junckes, tho verdict of tho lower tribunal was reversed, on what grounds it is.not stated; Sometimes, it appears, it is unwise to "try it on the dog." "