Well, television has the Emmys and the world of cinema has
the Academy Awards, but one of my favorite awards is the Stellas.
Not familiar?
The Stellas are given to people who
file frivolous lawsuits. They are named
after Stella Liebeck….the woman behind the words “Caution- Hot!” on each and
every cup of McDonald’s coffee. While
I realize Ms. Liebeck….and elderly woman…was burned terribly and McDonalds had
been warned for years via customer complaints their coffee was too hot there
are other Stella award winners that are beyond reasonable and reach the bizarre
and brazen category.
One Stella award winner was attacked by a squirrel outside a
shopping mall and claimed her injuries could have been prevented if the mall
had warned her that squirrels were living outside the mall doors.
A…..mazing.
I’ve never actually seen an attack squirrel. I have some that squeal their gibberish and
peer over the gutters at me, but attack?
Hardly. Perhaps it’s the mall
variety of squirrel that’s the most dangerous.
Another plaintiff who
won a Stella award blamed Mazda Motors for her injuries in a car wreck claiming
the company failed to provide instructions regarding the safe and proper use of
a seatbelt.
Seriously?
Perhaps each vehicle should come with its own private
stewardess so we can receive the seatbelt, exit and life vest tour every time
we venture from our driveway.
I really shouldn’t be surprised. There are
and have been all sorts of crazy
laws throughout history…..
Laws are necessary.
You simply can’t live with a group of humans and not have laws. While laws certainly don’t prevent bad things
from happening…..they can serve as a deterrent and the consequences for
breaking laws can eventually protect us from those who can’t seem to follow
laws.
But, sometimes laws are passed because someone wants to promote
something or someone did something stupid.
Also, from what I can see it’s much more fun for our lawmaking bodies to
pass laws than it is for them to repeal them….especially when they have become
antiquated. It’s interesting to see
what still remains on the books in some jurisdictions.
I’ve been told when you visit the City of Gainesville,
Georgia, you must eat your fried chicken with your hands. Now, if you happen to know that Gainesville
considers itself the chicken capital of the world then it makes sense they want
to promote eating fried chicken with your hands…..but a law? Any tried and true Southerner would know to
eat fried chicken with your hands.
At one time in the city of Columbus, Georgia it was against
the law to sit on your front porch in an indecent position. First of all…..what I might consider indecent
you might consider decent.
Second….I’d love to
hear the story behind that little law.
It is also rumored the state of Georgia still has at least
75 laws on the books dealing with rice paddies.
Yes, rice paddies.
This dates back to a time when rice was the number one crop
before the Civil War along the Savannah, Altamaha and Ogeechee Rivers. Later a hurricane damaged most of the
coastal rice fields and they were never replaced, but the laws remain…..just in
case, I guess.
The City of Douglasville is no different. If you go back through the Douglasville city
ordinances during the late 1800s some things stand out……
For example, citizens would be fined if they tied a mule, a
horse, or a cow under a tree and left it there for any amount of time.
Since automobiles weren’t around then it makes sense that
folks would travel to town using animals…..and if they had to go into the
courthouse or one of the businesses along Broad Street the animals had to be
hitched up somewhere, right?
The downtown parking lot didn’t exist then…..and at the time
I write this it doesn’t exist either due to construction…..but that’s another
column for another day, so I would guess the appropriate place back then would
have been the road outside the buildings, but apparently some folks wanted to
tie their animals up underneath the trees around the courthouse or even James Grove. I guess with the animal droppings and the
animals grazing on the grass and flowers the ladies had planted in James Grove…
it would have become an issue.
Docket’s for the Mayor’s Court indicate Tom McElreath’s
horse, Julia Clayton’s cow and George Gamble’s mule were all found tethered
beneath trees within the city limits.
All three were fined one dollar.
On the subject of animal droppings…….another early town
ordinance called for all males between the ages 16 to 45 to work on the city
streets for 15 days a year or pay $1.75 if they refused. I would imagine since the roads were dirt
back then the road work would have consisted of filling in the constant mud
holes……there was a large one at the intersection of Campbellton and Broad. Folks finally named the hole because it
couldn’t be maintained due to the traffic.
They called it Hog Wallow if I remember correctly. It would also take a regular crew of folks
to keep the animal droppings off the streets.
I don’t guess folks were given baggies back then to keep the area around
their horse or mule neat and tidy.
Some men were exempt from the road crews including men
missing an arm or leg. The Mayor was
exempt along with the councilmen and licensed ministers.
During the late 1800s men who were missing an arm or a leg
were very commonplace as they were more often than not Civil War veterans. I can understand their exemption, but the
other exemptions seem a little extreme to me.
What about those men who were “filled with the Spirit” and “called to
preach the Gospel”, but were not licensed?
I guess they had to draw the line somewhere….
Also….why was the mayor and councilmen exempt? It wouldn’t have been the first time a politician
was known to shovel the……oh, never mind.
Traffic violations
during the late 1800s were also recorded in the Mayor’s Court dockets, but they
didn’t involve automobiles. Early
research indicates two men were fined one dollar each for riding their mules on
Douglasville’s sidewalks.
In the early days
Sundays in Douglasville were spent resting, visiting, and going to church,
however, some early Douglasville citizens had a choice….and used the day to pursue other activities such as
shooting craps, playing cards or making a little wager on a game of pool at one
of the local saloons.
Bars in Douglasville
dated back to 1877 when the first license to sell liquor was issued to
G.R.Turner, Douglasville’s City Treasurer.
Four years later Mr. Turner would obtain a license that allowed him to
offer a pool table for his customers to use.
Other saloons followed including one owned by G. G.
Stewart. Licenses to serve liquor were
$37.50 per year. I’ve written about
Douglasville’s Saloon Era here for
a more complete picture of that time.
There were other entertainments….
In June, 1880 G.B. Stewart obtained a license to operate the
first ten pin bowling alley.
During this time if city ordinances were broken citizens
would appear in Mayor’s Court. Most of
the court cases involved fighting and failure to pay taxes. Back then taxes ranged from twenty cents to
one dollar. Failure to remit your tax
meant you might be sentenced to work on the city streets and/or pay a three
dollar fine plus court costs…..or a week in jail. Fines for fighting were around one dollar.
Hmmm….I know some
people I’d be willing to smack for a dollar fine. How about you?
Fines were also issued within the city limits for cussing
(two dollars), for discharging a firearm within the city limits (two dollars or
five days), for disturbing a meeting of the medical society (three dollars) and
for getting on or off a moving train (one dollar).
Just like today laws were usually passed to solve a problem,
so I have to wonder about the story regarding the disturbance at the medical
society meeting. I wonder what went on
there…..
The more information I find through my research….the more questions I have.
Have a great week!!!
I continue to be amazed and encouraged by the number of page
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Some of this
information regarding city ordinances first appeared in a 1960s column Robert
Griggs had in the Sentinel.
