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E.B. White's Letter To The ASPCA (In Which He Calls Their Fire Hydrant Tag A "Feeble Gag")
By
Jen Carlson
Published Feb 7, 2012
Modified Feb 7, 2012
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Feb 7, 2012
Modified Feb 7, 2012
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The Letters of Note website has provided endless entertainment with a mailbag filled with nostalgia. (Marlon Brando's letter to a stewardess, Andy Warhol's warning letter from his Factory landlord, and the amazing rejection letter penned by Hunter S. Thompson while at Rolling Stone, to name a few.) Most recently they reprinted a ltter that E.B. White wrote to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on East 92nd Street. It's dated April 12th, 1951, and comes after White was accused by the ASPCA of not paying his dog tax and therefore "harboring" an unlicensed dog. Yes, to the man who penned Charlotte's Web. You can read the full thing here (and we recommend you do), but here's a excerpt:
I have your letter, undated, saying that I am harboring an unlicensed dog in violation of the law. If by "harboring" you mean getting up two or three times every night to pull Minnie's blanket up over her, I am harboring a dog all right. The blanket keeps slipping off. I suppose you are wondering by now why I don't get her a sweater instead. That's a joke on you. She has a knitted sweater, but she doesn't like to wear it for sleeping... of course with this night duty of mine, the way the blanket slips and all, I haven't had any real rest in years. Minnie is twelve.
Turns out Minnie did have a license, as White notes, "in the State of Maine as an unspayed bitch, or what is more commonly called an unspaded bitch. She wears her metal license tag but I must say I don't particularly care for it, as it is in the shape of a hydrant, which seems to me a feeble gag, besides being pointless in the case of a female." Now might be a good time to revisit White's Here Is New York.
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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