The Domestic Cat

by Gordon Stables

A great deal, I think, of the cruelty which is inflicted on the poor cat, is done through ignorance of pussy’s nature and constitution; done unwittingly, and with no real intention of doing the animal an injury.

It is very cruel indeed to starve the creature, with the idea that you will induce her to catch more mice. When a cat is hungry the system is weak, the mind is dull, and the nerves so far from being well-strung that she will do anything sooner than hunt. A well-filled stomach gives pussy patience, and that is much wanted for mouse-killing; besides, you must not forget that cats kill mice as much for the sport as anything else.

Another very common form of cruelty is that of turning the cat out every night. Cats need their comforts, and enjoy them too, more than any other domestic animal we possess. Leaving her out at night not only exposes her to colds, inflammations, and various diseases, but it leads her to contract bad habits; and she eventually gets trapped or killed, and no wonder; is she not, through your carelessness, a nuisance to the whole neighbourhood?

It is cruel not to feed your cats with regularity. They expect it, and need it; and, if they do not get it, what else can you expect but that your cat will become a thief?

What is called “wandering” cats is extremely cruel. A man has no further use for his cat, so he “wanders” her. I assure you it would be far more humane to drown her at once. How would you, yourself, like to be wandered—to be taken abroad somewhere, and placed down in the centre of savages; hungry and cold, and longing and pining for the home you left behind you; and in danger every moment of being cruelly slain? Don’t you think that speedy dissolution were more to be desired than such a life?

It is cruel, when your cat has kittens, to permit more to live than you can find decent homes for. It is a shame to a poor little kit, after it has opened its eyes to the wonders all around it, and begun to get happy and funny. Always keep one or two kittens for sake of the mother, and try, if possible, to find some one to take them. But the worst form of unintentional cruelty is that of leaving your poor favourite at home, when you go to the seaside, or to summer quarters. Often and often, on the return of the family, the unhappy cat is found lying in the empty hall, dead or dying, and wasted away to a mere handful of bones and skin—this in itself testifying to the sufferings she must have undergone for the want of food and water. Such gross carelessness ought to be made penal. I do not know whether the Society has ever yet prosecuted anyone for thus cruelly starving a cat, but I should think it would have little difficulty in obtaining a conviction.

I come now to mention some cases of intentional and specific cruelty, and shall be as brief as possible.

Some men, both young and old, think that a cat is a fit subject for torture and cruelty of all kinds; hence they never miss the chance of shying a stone after pussy’s retreating figure. Cases, too, are continually cropping up in the police courts, of men having tortured cats to the death with dogs.

Cat skins are considered of some value by the furriers. At a sale not long since in London, there were some three thousand cat skins. Where think you, reader, do these come from? That is a question unfortunately only too easily answered. In almost all large cities there exists a gang of ruffians—you cannot call them by a milder name—who eke out a sort of livelihood by stealing cats by every available means and method. But worse than this remains to be told; it is darkly whispered, and I have some reason to believe it may be but too true, that many of those poor cats are skinned alive, in the belief that the living skin thus procured retains the gloss.

In Greenland I have seen young seals flayed alive by the score. That was a sickening sight enough, but skinning alive a poor harmless cat must be many times worse. I wish I could say that it was only the lowest class of ruffians that ill-treat poor cats to the death, but—and I know this for certain—there are men who pass as gentlemen, who night after night set traps for cats that stray into their gardens, and kill them in the cruellest manner; and some of these fellows, too, keep neither poultry, pigeons, nor rabbits, and haven’t a flower in their gardens worthy of the name, only they hate cats. I know one gentleman (?) who thus traps and kills cats because he has a passion for fur rugs, which he thus indulges on the cheap.