Beware hot dog madness

A century ago, the hot dog wasn’t a kitschy food icon of summer fun and baseball, it was a vice, associated with bootleg liquor and drug smuggling. The Atlantic excerpts sensationalized newspaper articles from the time, some describing how hot dogs were stuffed with illegal drugs, soused with moonshine, or fed to unsuspecting kittens:

“A local society woman had a cook who was fond of the lowly wiener. She also thought her mistress might like a bit. The mistress emphatically did not and proceeded to feed the sausage to her pet kitten. The kitten grew furious after eating the ‘dog’ and after attacking the woman and lacerating her finger, died. Authorities are examining the head for rabies.”