PETS' GRAVEYARD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

PETS' GRAVEYARD.

MEMORY OF CATS AND DOGS

TOMBSTONE EPITAPHS.

Accidents on the London-Hastings road are rapidly filling a graveyard for dogs and cats which has been established by a garage proprietor at Tonbridge. ' Each traffic victim has its miniature tombstone; and the garage man, with humorous or sentimental brush, writes an appropriate epitaph. Humour for cats and sentiment for doss is the accepted rule. A little clump of wallflowers keep green the plot where '"my devoted dog' , lies, "never forgotten." But there is no one to mourn or strew flowers for '•Ginger, the old barn tomcat." Ho "lost all his nine lives when a five-ton lorry ran over him"; and there is a note "almost of good riddance in the superscription: '"No more shall his voice be heard in the stilly night."

There is a hint of ribaldry, too, in the epitaph for "Old Benzol, our cat." Motor-minded, as his name suggests, puss "tried to join a charabanc party and missed the step." Where 400 Dogs Lie. It was a. road accident long before the days of charabancs which led to the founding of London's famous Dogs' Cemetery In Kensington Gardens. The Duchess* of Cambridge, riding in her victoria, ran over her own dog, which was running beside the carriage. She asked that "the body should be buried in the little garden of the keeper's lodge; and thus was started the graveyard which is now the resting place of more than 400 dogs and two or three cats. The cemetery is long since full. It is 30 years since a new grave was dug, and about 20 years since last a new coffin was placed in a "family grave." But the. "not forgotten" motto engraved on so many of the headstones is not pious mockery in every case. Freshly plucked evergreens and holly are tobe seen on several of the graves. Tito humour of« the Tollbridge tombstones has no place here. Victoria sentiment is supreme. "Ginger" and "Benzol" died in a less reverent age than "Darling Dolly, by sunbeam, my consolation, my joy," who went to her reward in 1898.

"A Pal Asleep." Of the same generation was "My Little Sheila, fond and faithful dog of M. E."; and "Our well-loved little doggie," "Little, loving Duke," and "Dear old Gran." But there is the beginning of modernity in the epitaph to Cora: C "Here lies a pal asleep." More pride than regret blazons the memory of Tina—"champion of champions." Few sorrowing mistresses and masters cared to put their names to these effusions of regret. But 'one of the first stones inside the garden gate commemorates "Rex, 1890-1900, for nine years the devoted companion of Lady Bankroft." "Sir I. S." acknowledges with initials the faithful friendship of his dog, Tweedie; and another stone, to "Uncle" Bruce, gives the deceased's address in Sussex Gardens.

One inscription hints at murder. It records first the memory of "Fritz. Omnia Vanitas"; and secondly that of "Balu, son of Fnitz, poisoned by a cruel Swiss, Berne, 1509." Another travelled do"- who rests here was "Danger, born in the City of Mexico, 1894, died in London, 1901."