Henry Rippey, a local drunk, was in jail. His crime was taking the life of another, known only as Bummer. When word of this reached his cellmate, David Popley, the latter extracted some vigilante justice. Popley punched Rippey in the nose.
Inmate-on-inmate violence is, unfortunately, not all that rare, making the punch a nonstory. The fact that this happened in San Francisco in 1865 doesn’t add much to it either. Add that Rippey’s murder weapon was his shoe—he kicked Bummer to death—and maybe we’re getting a little closer . . . but not really. Even the fact that Mark Twain wrote Bummer’s obituary doesn’t make Popley’s defense of the victim’s honor all that unique.
But here’s the thing: Bummer was a dog.
And yes, Mark Twain really did write his obituary.
Dogs weren’t always domesticated in California in the 1860s. Around that time both Los Angeles and San Francisco had problems with “free-ranging” dogs—ferals and strays—running amok and often outnumbering people. Dogcatchers were common municipal authorities, and when a dogcatcher nabbed himself a stray, the dog was put to sleep with poison. But one ability could save a stray pup from death—ferreting out and killing rats.
By all accounts, Bummer was a great ratter, but his rise to fame came when, in 1861, another dog found himself on the losing side of a battle with a third, larger dog. Bummer came to the smaller dog’s aid and rescued him from the skirmish. Afterward, Bummer brought the smaller dog food and kept him warm. The second dog, later named Lazarus, survived, and for the rest of his life, he was Bummer’s sidekick. As a team, the two were even more efficient at catching rats; one source reports that they once nabbed eighty-five rodents in roughly twenty minutes.
Their reputations made them local heroes. When Lazarus was caught by a new dogcatcher in 1862, a groundswell of public support resulted in his release and the pair’s exemption from anti-stray ordinances. Legend has it that, a week later, they helped stop a runaway horse, which was dragging a cart through downtown San Francisco.
Lazarus passed away in 1863, and the San Francisco Chronicle published a lengthy obituary in his memory. Two years later, the previously mentioned Mr. Rippey caused the death of Bummer when he kicked the dog in a drunken stupor. The city arrested Rippey after the public demanded justice for the area’s unofficial mascot and über-pet.
Bummer and Lazarus’s legacy has rubbed off on a San Francisco–area company you may have heard of: Google. Google’s corporate code of conduct contains a “dog policy,” which reads, “Google’s affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we’re a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out.”