IS IT AUSSIE?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 154, 1 July 1940, Page 3

IS IT AUSSIE?

CAT WASHED ASHORE.

ALIVE ON DRIFTWOOD. MAT BE NIAGARA'S PET. WHANGAREI, this day. Believed to be Auesie, the cat which refused to leave the Niagara before the liner sank recently "eomewhere near Auckland," a cat has been waehed ashore alive on driftwood on a beach to the north of Whangarei Heads.

The animal is a Persian and talliee with the description of Aussie. The discovery of the cat was made by residents of the Horahora district.

It will be recalled that whi-n the Niagara's lifeboate were being lowered, the ship's cat was twice rescued by sailors, but each time leapt back on to the liner. It was thought that Aussie went down with the Niagara, thus being the sole casualty of the disaster.

For nearly five years Aueeie had been a popular member of the ship's company. The sea was in his blood, for hie mother had been in the Niagara before him. His father was an aristocratic Persian owned by a waterfront policeman at Vancouver. Aussie was born at Suva.

All ports on the Sydney-Vancouver run were well known to Aussie. In Sydney he had done quite a lot of exploring and on two occasions might have missed the sailing time had he not been found by shipmates. Once they picked him up on the steps of Sydney's chief poet office, and another time they found him ambling along one of the city's main streets.

Although he was owned by Mr. Robert Burns, providore-etorekeeper of the Niagara, every member of the crew took a personal interest in Aussie's welfare.