Lippard.Multics 1985-06-24 13:34:15 mst Mon
Subject:  Odd Laws
Date: 24 Jun 1985 11:17-PDT
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow <Geoff@SRI-CSL.ARPA>
To: Info-Cobol@MIT-MC
Cc: Frog@NIC


a210  1058  24 Jun 85
AM-Odd Laws, Bjt,0560
Beware of Stealing Someone's Bear, Operating Sleigh without Bells
By CHRISTOPHER B. DALY
Associated Press Writer
    BOSTON (AP) - It's a crime to race a horse along a highway in
Kentucky or curse an umpire in Massachusetts, and ''hunting in
cemeteries is prohibited'' in Oregon.
    New Mexico frowns on ''indecent waitering,'' and Wyoming forbids
serving the same food twice.
    When it comes to family law, Oklahoma is perhaps the most blunt.
''The husband is the head of the family,'' according to the official
statutes, and ''he may choose any reasonable place or mode of living
and the wife must conform thereto.''
    Those are but a smattering of the legal oddities and statutory
antiques tucked away in state statutes and codes that are among the
highlights of a whimsical paperback by lawyer Susan Savoca Twarog
titled ''A Compendium of Odd Laws,'' to be published by the small
publisher Apple-wood Books of Cambridge.
    ''The publisher is a friend, and we were sitting around at brunch
and talking, and this idea came up and we batted it around,'' said
Twarog, 29, a Harvard Law School graduate. ''Basically, I went over
to the Harvard Law Library and started to poke around. And I said,
yeah, we could do it.
    ''There's no index to unusual laws. So, you pull the volumes off the
shelf and look through them.''
    When she finished her research late last year, all the examples she
culled were ''on the books'' and in force, even if they are largely
ignored, but she warns that some may have been repealed or amended
since then.
    One rich source of legal levity is the store of laws on animals.
    In Ohio, ''No person shall, for the purpose of competing for purses
or premiums, designedly enter or drive a horse which has been painted
or disguised.''
    Ohio's Revised Code also says, ''No owner of a stallion or jack ...
shall permit it to serve a mare within 30 feet of a public street or
alley ....''
    In neighboring Kentucky, ''Any person who displays, handles or uses
any kind of reptile in connection with any religious service or
gathering shall be fined not less than $50 nor more than $100.''
    New Hampshire makes it a crime to ''steal, take and carry away a
bear of another without permission,'' while Massachusetts says, ''No
person shall stable a horse or mule on the second or any higher floor
of any building'' - unless it has two exits and a sprinkler.
    From Vermont: ''A person shall not engage in the business of
raising, breeding, keeping or maintaining horses for the purpose of
selling their urine, unless licensed to do so.''
    North Dakota supplied Twarog's personal favorite: ''The license and
permit fees shall be as follows: For a resident husband and wife frog
license, five dollars.''
    Massachusetts is well represented, including: ''No person shall
travel on a way with a sleigh or sled drawn by a horse, unless there
are at least three bells attached to some part of the harness.''
    Massachusetts law also states: ''A town ... shall annually choose
one or more measurers of wood and bark...'' They still do.
    ''Actually, most of them are very sensible,'' says Twarog. ''There
was probably a decent reason for them.''
    But why does the Texas penal code state that ''a person commits an
offense if he intentionally or knowingly possesses knuckles?''

AP-NY-06-24-85 1354EDT
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