'Beautiful Joe'

While I'm still learning about Meaford, I must tell you about Beautiful Joe.  Joe was a dog who lived here in the 1890's, part bull-terrier and part fox-terrier, but widely described as a mutt.  I'm not sure that any book about a dog ever, has been as popular as 'Beautiful Joe'.

Beautiful Joe suffered badly from an abusive owner initially, a local milkman who was known to be cruel to his animals.  Near death and suffering from having his ears and tail cut off, he was rescued and came to live with the Moore family in 1890.  Mr. Moore's sister was the celebrated novelist Margaret Saunders.  After coming to visit and learning of Joe's story, she wrote a full-length autobiographical novel, from Joe's point of view.  Published in 1893 it was an an immediate best seller, and sold nearly one million copies by 1900, and 7 million worldwide over the next 30 years.  It was the first Canadian book ever to sell one million copies and was translated into several languages.

This is the Historic Plaque in Beautiful Joe Park, near downtown Meaford.  The Beautiful Joe Heritage Society maintains the park and there are apparently several other monuments present in the park.  I was so focussed on  checking out 'Beautiful Joe' that I only noticed one other monument.

 

Appropriately, this monument celebrates the contribution of Police Canine Units.  Mly picture was taken on a dull November Day, but this picture I found online seems to capture the park and memorial much better.  I need to return to search out the other monuments and tell you the full story of the park.

The book 'Beautiful Joe' is clearly written to educate the reader about animal welfare, an increasing issue in the late 19th Century.    Margaret Saunders herself compares her effort to the book 'Black Beauty', a similar but even more popular book written from the viewpoint of a horse, one of the most popular books of all time.  The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) was established to protect the many carriage horses in late 19th Century cities from abuse.  Black Beauty had been a carriage horse pulling taxicabs in London, England.  These books voice the animal welfare argument quite specifically, that children need to learn to be kind to animals if they are going to grow up to be kind as people.  Who knows how big an influence this book was on the animal welfare movement, but it certainly made Beautiful Joe a local Meaford hero.

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