DEAR SUN SPOTS: My friends and I hope you can answer a question for us.

On automobiles do things in the passenger-side mirror have to look farther away?

Also, maybe your readers might have the directions for playing the games of Flinch and Snitchboard.

Thank you for any help you can provide. — N.S. Landy, Norway

ANSWER: Yes, the mirrors do need to work that way. It’s necessary because the mirrors are convex to provide a field of view wide enough to see all the cars in lanes behind you. This also makes objects appear smaller and thus farther away.

The warning phrase is required on passenger-side mirrors of motor vehicles in the U.S., Canada and India. 

As for those game rules, you can find them — and the rules for just about any game ever played — online, but Sun Spots did not have much luck with Snitchboard. There were several mentions of it, but no clear explanation of rules.

She did find Flinch, but there isn’t enough space in the column to reprint those rules. You can take this link to the public library and ask the librarian to print them out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flinch_(card_game)

DEAR SUN SPOTS: Regarding Jean’s request for the location of cattle pounds (Nov. 19), there is one on Hallowell Road (Route 9) in Pownal. It’s on the same side of the street Bradbury Mountain, just before the turn into Bradbury. — Jeanne, Auburn

DEAR SUN SPOTS: Robert Allen who is searching for the grave of his ancestor, Thomas Allen (Nov. 19), should contact the Buckfield Historical Society. It normally meets the second Thursday of each month.

For more information or to make an appointment to meet with a member of the historical society, please contact President Mary Judd at 207-336-3356. — Pam Crawford via email

ANSWER: When she published the three history questions in the Nov. 19 column, Sun Spots gave Bates professor emeritus Doug Hodgkin of the Androscoggin Historical Society a heads-up in case he could provide any information. He was, as usual, helpful.

“Concerning cattle pounds, farmers were expected to keep their animals, including horses, cattle, goats, sheep and swine, under control. Town meetings elected ‘field drivers,’ whose job was to seize animals that had wandered and caused damage and take them to the pound, which was supervised by an elected ‘pound keeper.’

“The owner could retrieve them by paying damages and fees. The fees in Lewiston in 1857 were $2.75 per week for each horse, 25 cents per day for cattle, 6 to 10 cents per day for swine and 3 cents per day for sheep.

“In 1826 Lewiston voted ‘to build a pound, to be built of stone, the wall to be four feet thik [sic] at the bottom and two feet thick at the top, and seven feet high and to be thirty feet square on the inner side … to have one gate suitablely [sic] secured with lock and hinges of iron.’ The heavy, locked gate was to prevent owners from ‘liberating’ their animals without paying damages and fees.

“Lewiston’s pound was on the east side of Webster Street in the vicinity of the intersection with Alfred Plourde Parkway. I have explored the area but could find no surviving evidence of Lewiston’s pound.

“Regarding Grant’s Bakery, the Androscoggin Historical Society welcomes researchers to look in our collection of Lewiston-Auburn directories to determine the locations of the businesses over the years.

“Regarding the grave of Thomas Allen, who lived in Buckfield, I found record that he died in Hartford, and his burial site was “Unknown, The Maple Grove Cemetery”: http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/d/a/y/Holly-J-Day/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0066.html. The Maine Old Cemetery Association transcribed gravestones and might have a record of him.”

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