A WILD CAT SCHEME.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXIII, Issue 310, 13 January 1912, Page 7

A WILD CAT SCHEME.

For many years America has been the home of thousands of people who are infected with what their countrymen call the "'get-rich-quick fever," and they have never lacked assistance from men of inventive minds. Proposals- for extracting gold from the sea and* the flotation of a company to sell "bottled sunshine" have been among recent '•.wild cat" schemes for acquiring fabulous wealth with unusual rapidity, but those fantastic ideas have been outdone. A New York newspaper states that the latest'get-rich-quick .scheme is awarded by common consent the first prize "for all the fertile' imaginings which have coaxed dollars from the bank accounts of people on the watch for 100 per cent, investments." Some ingenious indiviuals have come to the conclusion that cat skins offer a profitable field for exploitation, and by means of a circular they have been inviting help in the formation of a company. < "We will start a cat ranch, getting 1,000,000 cats," states the circular. "Each will have twelve kittens a, year. Cat skins aro worth -3d for white ones and 3s for black. They will average Is 3d each. There are, therefore, 12,000,000 cat skins a year, and a daily gross income of so mo £2OOO. A man can skin 50 cats for Bs, and it will take 1000 men to operate the ranch, leaving our profit £I6OO a day." The feeding of 1,000,000 cats suggests a serious problem, but it is one that offers no obstacle to fertile brains. They would start a rat ranch next door. '"Rats," says a circular, "multiply four times as fast- as cats. We shall have therefore four rats a day for each eat—a plenty. How to feed the rats ? Simple ; feed them on the cat bodies, a. fourth of a cat per rat—amply sufficient." The sanguine promoters of the scheme are greatly pleased with it. "The business," they state, "will be self-supporting and automatic nil the way. The cats will oat the rats, and the rats will eat the cats; we will get the skins and the wealth. Are you with us?" No doubt some unwise people will be "with them" even in this ridiculous undertaking.