CATGUT KINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 311, 31 December 1923, Page 6

CATGUT KINGS.

INDUSTRY OF MYSTERY. ' A PELINE PHANTASY. It is not too much to say that a great part of modern civilisation has been built up on the digestive organs of the common cat. When one considers what an extraordinary number of human activities are almost wholly dependent on an adequate supply of "catgut" for their continuance, one realises that a certain complacency which has been observed in cats of all periods of history is not altogether unjustified. Where would be the fame of Mr. W. T. Tildcn to-day if the cats of which his racquets were" made went unmolested still? What of Fritz Kreisler and his stringless violin, Izaak Walton and his undeceiving line visible to all fish? Those of tls who have been operated upon for appendicitis hesitate to think of the wounds that would still be ours but for the cat's providential intervention. The fact that a large proportion of the world's catgut comes from sheep does not really detract from the credit tlmt is due to puss. History proves that the first commercial gut ever used came exclusively from cats, which until comparatively recent times have boon regarded as fair game for any sort of indignity. The cat is undoubtedly tbe pioneer of the enormous gut industry of to-day, and as such deserves full credit.

Strict Secrecy. It is a curious thing, however, that one never hears of cats being sin lightered for this purpose on a wholesale scale. It is said that for certain forms of surgical and sporting work gut that is cat in origin as well as in name is still infinitely superior to the imitation article; hut if there be any miniature abattoirs for the purpose of obtainit, they are carried on under the strictest secrecy. The process by- which warm, furry, purring domestic pets are changed into the stark realities of "cat-gut" is shrouded in mystery. No doubt it is better so; there are certain things which, even in these enlightened times, are better left unknown. And there would seem to be a conspiracy of silence over the whole mntter: those who probably do know how and where the material is prepared unanimously profess complete ignorance. A well-known sports-dealer in London excused the delays in repairing a racquet on the grounds of an insufficient supply of gut. "The new lot hasn't come up from the foundry yet," he added vaguely. What this 'foundry" may be is best left to the imagination. But this somewhat disturbing and cryptic observation at least shows that there are certain places where cats enter in bulk, all unsuspecting, to meet their doom. Another interesting question is raised by the fact that a cat is not all gut, and that it is also possessed of fur and other attributes. Is there any commercial use made of these? Under its own name, at least, cat-skin as an article of clothing is comparatively rare. And there is the rest of the cat, which brings us inevitably to the problem that has baffled earnest scientific investigators of this and every other age. Is "catsmeaf for, or of, cats? Or is it both? This is a problem that has, like the squaring of the circle and the duplication of the cube, remained unsolved down the centuries.