THE SINGING DOG OF LINCOLN PLACE (1915)
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The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
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Nothing makes front page news like the ridiculous or the sublime.
Just over 100 years ago, the stage was certainly given over to the ridiculous.
That year – 1915 – produced the first-ever crooning canine.
And “Bunny,” the French bulldog was its name- or, rather, was it “Gaby,” the French bulldog – but, perhaps, it was “Bunny”?
This confusion, it seemed, was the apex upon which would spin the entire ever-dizzying melodrama concerning the ownership of said dog – and to obscure matters even slightly further, there was a total of three individuals who seemed to be quite certain that each was the master to this now-famous dog.
The contest, thus, was set, the curtains prepared to be drawn, and the public waited impatiently to review every detail of the salacious tragedy in an effort to determine the eventual players of the parts – in particular, who would emerge before the footlights in the precious and coveted melodramatic role of supporting actress to Bunny (or Gaby), the singing dog.
And the newspapers covered it all, down to its last partially accurate detail.
SETTING THE STAGE
The Bunny-Gaby trial was certain to provide some good pieces for the newspapers for at least a week as the case weaved its way through the court system, but the players, the scenes, and the script together made for a heady brew, so let’s first set the stage for the drama that was about to unfold:
Maude Klotz, a famous soprano living at 907 Lincoln Place, was “in a stationery store on Nostrand Avenue with ‘Bunny,’ and had her on a lead, when this man suddenly rushed in, pulled the dog away, struck me on the arm, and then dashed out.”
Klotz “ran after him and demanded ‘Bunny,'” but “he laughed at me” and “told me I was a liar, and that the dog was his.”
Soon a crowd gathered and a policeman who had been standing on the coner cmae over to see what was the matter.
Klotz recounted her tale, but when she had finished, the man once again stated that she was a liar and that the dog, “Gaby,” was his dog who had been lost some two months previous.
The man, John Beatty, “a professional rider for the Vitagraph Company, reasserted his claim on the dog and demanded that he be allowed to keep her. The policeman, taking pity on Klotz, who was literally a mess of tears at the time, allowed her to take the dog home and told the two parties to settle the matter in court.
THE SAGA CONTINUES
When Miss Klotz finally decided to press charges for assault against Mr. Beatty and the case went to court, she recognized Beatty’s sister, Miss May Beatty of 680 St. John’s Place.
“This Miss Beatty, by the way, met me on the street about five weeks ago, while I had Bunny out, and asked if she couldn’t walk with me a way, because she said that Bunny looked like a dog she had lost.”
This should have sent up red flag for Klotz, but she allowed the woman to walk with her, perhaps out of sympathy for her loss.
“She went about eight blocks with me, and she said that it wasn’t their dog, after all, because theirs had had not to full a cheek.
THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE IS SET
After Miss Klotz filed her suit against John Beatty, he was arrested and held for the charge of assault, released on bail of $500. The following day, the “fashionably dressed audience” was on hand to watch the show. Miss Klotz appeared in furs, the Beattys appeared in their finery, and Bunny – or Gaby – or “Bunny-Gaby” as she was beginning to become known – “didn’t seem to min it at all. She slept peacefully on Miss Klotz’s lap while waiting for the case to be called and barked whole her mistress was testifying, in utter defiance of all rules of the court.”
Klotz noted that Bunny had been a birthday present of six months previous and that she was no more than two years old. The Beatty’s claimed that Klotz had stolen her somehow and that the bulldog was at least five years old.
While the judge had heard enough to place the case on his calendar, he was not likely prepared for Miss Beatty’s announcement of a surprise witness – the card up her sleeve in this whole game of wits – the dog. For she asserted, indeed she announced, that by the end of the trial she would make the dog sing.
CLASSICAL AND RAGTIME-SINGING BULLDOG
By the end of the tiring day, Miss Beatty told the court a story that turned the dog trial on its head – Gaby could sing. And Miss Beatty would prove it.
She asserted that whenever she – Miss Beatty – sand a classical selection, that the dog would “sing with her; and that when she breaks into ragtime, the dog will break into that immediately with her.”
It was a stunning assertion, one which many were not sure they could believe. They would be onhand, however, to hear it if the act were to be performed.
THE CLOSING CURTAIN
On the final day of trial, the “room was filled with well dressed women who love dogs,” and “there was a veritable forest of waving plumes and a frou-fro of silk skirts.”
The “chief figure in the case,” the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter noted, “arrived early. He was simply, but neatly, dressed in a camel’s hair blanket shot with yellow stripes, and walked calmly to his seat. He declined to be interviewed. He appeared to be intensely bored by the proceedings.”
More than twenty witnesses were heard, including dog fanciers and veterinarians.
But when Miss Beatty went on the stand “the dog still preserved a neutral attitude, and its Gaelic countenance was not crossed by any emotion.”
The case, though, would turn on one piece of evidence – the age of the dog. When two veterinarians swore that the dog was not “over 30 months old,” Bunny-Gaby became Bunny again and the French bulldog went home to Lincoln Place.
But what happened to all off the singing that Miss Beatty had promised the audience and the court?
“The dog cannot sing,” Miss Klotz noted with scorn.
While Miss Beatty had tried at the last court date, and tried once again on the final court date, she could not coerce the canine into singing even a few bars of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” Bunny-Gaby was having none of it, unfortunately for Miss Beatty.
“Not once,” the newspapers noted, ” did the toy bull-dog lift up its voice in song while in could and nobody tested it for a singing voice.”
For all we know, Bunny sang a contralto that evening, then a classical rendition of the Aria, followed by a fine “Maple Leaf Rag.”
But, if he did, it happened on Lincoln Place – not on St. John’s.
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