Said a citizen to a reporter today: "I dislike too much legislation as
much as anyone, but I wish the council would pass an ordinance determining on which side of the street we shall drive.
"It may appear a small thing to you who walk, but I assure you it is a serious matter, and may yet result in a fatality. It is becoming the proper caper to own a trotting horse, and to spend one's spare time in driving. This is the first time driving horses has become sufficiently common to bring us to a sudden realization that we of Dawson have no uniformity in the matter of turning out to pass. As you approach another team you think to yourself, 'I wonder whether that galoot is an American, a Canadian or a little Englander.' If you recognize him to be the former you turn to the right, and find yourself passing without a collision. If you find the opposing driver to be the latter, you turn to the left, and again escape. But if you don't know the man you are approaching,
or if he be a Canadian who has crossed the border and driven horses in both places, you have no way of telling which wav he will turn, except that he as mortal sure to turn the opposite way to that which you guess for him.
The result is a sudden sawing on the lines with uncomplimentary references to the other fellow's stupidity in not knowing which way to turn in the public highway, when the truth like as not, is that it is yourself endeavoring to guess the other fellow's intentions have made an error.
"It all comes of the differences of the customs in Uncle Sam's domain and under the Jack. Possibly when the use of horses shall have ceased to be so new a thing as it is at present we shall find ourselves following some general custom which will make legislation unnecessary."
