“Arraigned for Torturing a Cat: Frank Dunning promising that his father won’t let him do so again”. So reads an article title from The Sun, May 12, 1880. Sad but true, readers: my second cousin, four times removed, made headlines in New York for animal cruelty.

Frank was 23 years old at the time, having graduated from Columbia Law School two years prior. His 1918 obituary in The Princeton Alumni Weekly describes him as “courteous, jolly…the life of the circle at class and club gatherings”. That’s not quite how he comes off here.

I would be doing a disservice to my 8th grade Social Studies teacher if I didn’t mention yellow journalism at this point. This is exactly the period (1880-1900) that journalists looked for sensational crime stories to attract readers. Headlines were meant to shock; scandals increased readership.

I feel a pinch of remorse for dragging this example out 139 years later, especially as the means through which his descendants should remember him. Then again, come on, Frank! Plenty of privileged law grads fail the bar exam without resorting to violence. 

I’m copying the entire article from the New York Times below.(I’ve highlighted the best of the muckraking in bold):

Mr. Dunning’s Bull-Dog:

A Cat’s Tragic Death and the Indignation it Aroused

Frank Dunning, a young lawyer, of 37 West Thirty-eight-street, is the owner of a bull-dog whose natural propensity to attack cats with savage violence on all possible occasions led yesterday morning to the arrest of his master on the charge of cruelty to animals.

The lingering and cruel death of the unfortunate cat after the assault upon it by Mr. Dunning’s dog was not described in the affidavit, but was pathetically narrated  by Mrs. Whiting, whose story was corroborated by her companion, Mrs. Pratt. Last Saturday evening, she said, about 7 o’clock the cat scampered across the street in the direction of Mr. Dunning’s basement, just as the young gentleman and his dog were emerging from the front entrance with a view of taking an evening airing.

Catching a glimpse of the cat’s tail as it disappeared through the railings, Mr. Dunning said, “Sic her.” The dog obeyed with the utmost promptitude, and a moment later Mrs. Whiting and Mrs. Pratt were horrified to see the savage canine seize the luckless feline by the neck and carry her to the street, where he shook her until she became apparently lifeless.

At length Mr. Dunning, who had in the meantime stood by a delighted spectator of his dog’s prowess, interfered, and, taking the cat by the neck, slung her into the middle of the street. There she lay for some time feebly shaking her tail, until a passing wagon ran over her body. Even after that the cat manifested signs of life.

Mrs. Whiting sent her servant to the office for the Society of Cruelty to Animals to apprise them of the case. An officer who returned to the scene of the tragedy with some of the poison which the society uses to terminate the misery of dying beasts, found the cat dead. The body remained nearly opposite the aristocratic residence of Mrs. Whiting until Sunday, when it was removed by the Board of Health.

Mr. Dunning denied point-blank the truth of the charge of “inciting” the dog to assail the cat. The cat, he explained, was regarded as a nuisance in the neighborhood, and having a feline acquaintance of the male sex on the other side of the street, had been in the habit of spending many of her evenings in and about Mr. Dunning’s area in the company of her gentleman friend.

On Saturday evening his dog caught sight of the obnoxious creature, and, apparently recognizing her as a cat for whose blood he had been particularly thirsting for many days, at once attacked her. Despite the remonstrances of his master, the dog continued to bite the cat until she succeeded in escaping through the iron railing into the roadway, where she was run over by a wagon.

Mr. Dunning’s father, a lawyer, of No. 9 Nassau Street, said he was quite certain his son was not the sort of person to commit the crime charged against him. After consulting together, the two ladies decided not to appear against Mr. Dunning. Justice Kilbreth then informed the officer that he would indefinitely adjourn the case, but the papers were subsequently endorsed “discharged”.

Superintendent Hatfield was very indignant over the disposition of the case. “If the prisoner was a poor devil instead of a rich man,” remarked Mr. Hatfield to a TIMES reporter last evening, “the Judge would have held him in $300 bail. So far as I am informed of the particulars, the cat was cruelly butchered. The ladies are positive that young Dunning set the dog after the cat, and that he afterward slung her out on the roadway to be mangled by the passing vehicles.” 

Blood is thicker than water, so they say.

It looks as if the family shipped Frank off at some point to avoid further trouble. (I found another police document with his name on it, dated 1890). The Princeton obituary put it gently: “A country life…had a much stronger appeal for him, and he spent much of his time at Warwick, Orange County, N.Y., at the family country home, where farming and shooting were more to his taste.”

Shooting, right. We hope the female cats of Warwick knew enough to entertain their gentleman friends elsewhere!