ANDY TAYLOR - MAYBERRY MALFEASANT

J'ACCUSE!

Here's a little item that caught my eye while home for Christmas......

If you google "Sheriff Commits Fraud", you'll find plenty of news stories archived where the town sheriff is accused of bank fraud, mail fraud, insurance fraud.....

But did you know that in Toobworld, the most beloved sheriff of all should be tarred with that same brush?

In a third season episode of 'The Andy Griffith Show', Mayor Stoner refused to sanction the financial under-writing of the Mayberry Band's trip to the state capital for the annual competition. His reason? They suck.

So Andy forces a visiting band of professional musicians, by threatening them with trumped-up charges (so there's another crime!), into acting as ringers in the marching band in order to deceive the Mayor.

Mayor Stoner doesn't realize he's been duped until the band's bus pulls out of town.

Here are the relevant clips from that episode:

Now, had this been real life, Andy would have lost his job as soon as he got back to Mayberry. But in the Tooboworld reality it was apparently okay as it was all for a "good cause". Of course, that cause entailed drinking, carousing, and probably even whoring by only an elite few from Mayberry. And all on the town's dime.

The dark underside of small town life......

It's as Sherlock Holmes said in "The Adventure Of The Copper Beeches":

"It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.…

"[L]ook at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser."

BCnU!