Los Angeles policemen are beginning to figure to what extent the supplanting of the horse by the automobile is going to lessen their chances to win glory.
The policeman’s most frequent opportunity to distinguish himself is afforded by runaway horses. There is not an experienced officer on the force who has not won honorable mention at one time or another by stopping a team. The acts of the police in this respect are at times indeed heroic. More than one officers has imperiled his life in the effort to prevent a runaway.
Officer Charles A. Lehnhausen, who guards the crossing at First and Main streets [pictured] at the present time, has had bitter experience of this kind.
Lehnhausen tried to stop a runaway at Fifth and Spring streets something over a year ago. A halter with a heavy hitching weight attached was fastened to the horse’s bridle, and as the officer made a grab for the horse’s head, the weighted halter wrapped itself around his leg and he was jerked violently to the pavement.
The corner of Fifth and Spring Streets, where Officer Charles A. Lehnhausen suffered severe injuries.
The back of his head struck a projecting rail of a street-car track, and he received injuries which nearly cost him his life.
His eyesight was almost destroyed by the jar in the optic nerves, and never since the accident has Officer Lehnhausen been the strong, able-bodied man he was before . . . .
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Some officers seem to have more frequent opportunities to stop runaways than others and always manage to escape without injury to themselves.
One . . . is Officer William Matuszkiewiz, “Billy Two-Whiskers,” as the boys call him for short. . . .
One day Billy was walking his beat on North Spring Street when a fractious steed attached to a light buggy came dashing out of Franklin Street [which ran across the property that later became the California State Building, now demolished], headed direct for the show window of a big clothing house on the opposite side of Spring Street [the present east lawn of the City Hall].
People scattered right and left before the fiery beast, and several women and children narrowly escaped being tramped under foot. . . . Matuszkiewiz . . . ran directly in front . . . and delivered a powerful blow on the nose with his club. The blow felled the horse as though it had been shot, and people crowded around the officer to shake his hand on account of the clever way in which he averted disaster
One of the proprietors of the store rushed out and told the gallant policemen that he should have a suit of clothes for what he had done, but Matuszkiewiz never get the clothes.
On another occasion, Matuszkiewiz stopped a runaway team attached to a carriage containing a woman and a little child.
The owner of the rig looked the officer up and offered to reward him by tendering him one dollar for saving the life of his child. The man would have offered more, no doubt, had it not been for the fact that he woman who was in the carriage . . . was the man’s mother-in-law. . . .
Matuszkiewiz did not accept the dollar.
At another time Matuszkiewiz stopped a runaway team belonging to a wealthy wine merchant. . . . Shortly afterward there were delivered at Matuszkiewiz’s house several cases of excellent wines. . . . he didn't find anything in the rules to compel him to send them back. . . .
[Matuszkiewiz also saved a child in San Francisco when he was taking a prisoner to San Quentin. The child’s mother fainted, but recovered enough to hug and kiss the policeman and say:]
"My dear man, do tell me your name, so I can tell my husband, who will amply reward you for saving our darling’s life." . . .
Matuszkiewiz remembered that he had in charge before the runaway incident a convict on his way to San Quentin. . . . His anxiety was short-lived, however, as the convict had moved only a few paces from the spot and was meekly waiting for the officer to resume charge of him. . . .
If horseless carriages come into general use and the runaway steed is relegated to the boneyard, what opportunities will there be to earn distinction and substantial rewards such as have come to Officer William Matuszkiewiz is the question which the policemen are asking.
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