Tennessee, December 25, 1879

Hawesville, Ky., brags of a man who doesn’t care for dogs at all when he is sober, but, when he’s drunk, has a mania to own all the dogs in the country. He will ask a neighbor to give him his dog. If he won’t give it, the man tries to buy it; if the other won’t sell it the first steals it. He had thus been known to collect 150 dogs in a week’s spree, and feeds them liberally till he gets sober.