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Two readers in Ontario mailed Dawn press items about a statute in Toronto that has raised some hackles. The 13-1/2 foot bronze and granite monument depicts Alexander Wood, famous for both owning the land on which the community now sits, and for being run out of town under a cloud of sexual scandal in the early 1800s. It shows a dapper young man wearing a long coat and holding a top hat and cane.

Apparently, the intriguingly named Mr. Wood ran afoul of some of his contemporaries during his investigation of a rape accusation made by a local woman who claimed she managed to scratch her attacker's pecker with her fingernails. Perhaps anticipating the Michael Jackson trial (with its focus on Thriller's supposed Appaloosa-style pecker), Mr. Wood conducted what in the Navy is called a "short arm" inspection, presumably looking for tell-tale abrasions on the perpetrator's organ. But some allege that Wood dawdled with his inspections, and all-too-obviously enjoyed his... probings. Soon, he was branded a "molly" (which means "fag" or "sex offender") and agreed to leave town in exchange for not being prosecuted. (Of course, in today's more enlightened times, such would never happen... he'd face a gazillion counts of rape and abuse, be sentenced to decades in prison, and be required to register for life as a threat to all decent people.... and he'd never get into an Orlando hurricane shelter-- see above item.)

Commendably, the sculpture includes a plaque commemorating the offense leading to Wood's ostracism: a bronze inset at the base of the statue depicts a man's rear-end with his pants around his knees, Wood's outstretched hand in mid-examination. Dawn hears the buttocks are shiny from all the tourists rubbing the "victim's" ass for good luck....