{"id":5883,"date":"2015-04-16T10:49:25","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T14:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/?p=5883"},"modified":"2015-04-16T10:49:25","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T14:49:25","slug":"dogs-will-be-10-inches-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/2015\/04\/16\/dogs-will-be-10-inches-only\/","title":{"rendered":"Dogs will be 10 inches only"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired\u00a0Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"cat\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Massachusetts is known for many things- ridiculously high taxes, fanatical sports teams, and this year “historic” winter storms. \u00a0What I was unaware of until now\u00a0were the seemingly crazy laws that exist in our history until I started flipping the pages of\u00a0this book. \u00a0Why would one limit the height of a dog to 10 inches and that of a cat to 48 inches?\u00a0 The idea for\u00a0Comics in the Law<\/em> came from the popularity of the radio broadcasts of “Freak Laws” by Lyman Cook on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and Station KMOX in Saint Louis, Missouri during the 1930s. \u00a0Cook was a member of the Missouri Bar and the book is a compilation of these bizarre laws often accompanied by hilarious illustrations. \u00a0Here are a few gems I noticed that refer to our great state of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

\"santa\"<\/a>What’s wrong with Christmas? \u00a0When the Puritans came over to America\u00a0they also brought their dislike of festivity with them and commemorated\u00a0Christmas by praying, reflecting on sin, and working instead of resting. \u00a0In 1659 the Massachusetts Bay Colony\u00a0even went so far as to charge a five shilling fee for anyone caught celebrating. \u00a0This law lasted a long 23 years\u00a0but it took almost another two hundred before the state declared\u00a0Christmas to be an official holiday in\u00a01856. \u00a0It can best be summed up by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who wrote \u201cWe are in a transition state about Christmas here in New England. The old Puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"wife\"<\/a><\/em>\u00a0 Apparently a man cannot refuse to marry a woman simply because she has a bad disposition.\u00a0This was upheld in\u00a0a case tried in Suffolk County between\u00a0Anna D. Van Houten vs. Asa P. Morse<\/a>\u00a0in 1894. \u00a0She claimed breach of promise of marriage against him and the jury returned a verdict supporting her.<\/p>\n

If a man and a woman enter into an engagement to marry…or that there was a want of affection on her part, or an incompatibility, resulting from disparity of age, difference in character and dispositions, and other causes, will not justify him, as matter of law, in breaking the contract.<\/em><\/p>\n

To learn more about\u00a0bizarre laws across the country look for\u00a0Comics in the law, by Lyman E. Cook … [Chicago,Universal publishers, c1938]<\/a>\u00a0which can be found in Widener’s collection.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager, for contributing this post.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired\u00a0Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. \u00a0\u00a0Massachusetts is known for many things- ridiculously high taxes, fanatical sports teams, and this year “historic” winter storms. \u00a0What I was unaware of until now\u00a0were the seemingly crazy laws that exist in our history until I started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4490,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[72741],"tags":[131761,628,131763,72720,131762,131764,131765],"class_list":["post-5883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-widener-library","tag-comic-in-the-law","tag-comics","tag-crazy-laws","tag-julio-mario-santo-domingo-collection","tag-lyman-cook","tag-massachusetts-christmas","tag-puritans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5TUly-1wT","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4490"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5883"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5899,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883\/revisions\/5899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}