BOX OF DEATH

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 55, 28 November 1929, Page 10

BOX OF DEATH

GETTING RID OF UNWANTED CATS

A HUMANE METHOD

(By

A.O.H.)

Animal-lovers will welcome the information in our issue of a few days ago to the effect that the S.P.C.A. in Wellington has obtained for public use a lethal box for administering a painless coup de grace to unwanted, diseased, senile, unloved, bad-tempered and superfluous cats. This solves a great problem. In dealing with most other animals we have established practices. Horses we shoot, beef cattle we knock on the head, hedgehogs we run over with motor-cars, lions we run away from and unwanted humans we may deport. But cats stay our hand; they are so weak and inoffensive, ingratiating and companionable, and behind their clam, green eyes is something of the ancient mystery of Egypt, where they are supposed to have come from in the first place. They are so often treated as one of the family, and consequently the question of how to get rid of unwanted cats has always been a sore one with the tender-hearted.

A Child’s First Tragedy.

The first tragedy in the life of a child is to witness the drowning of excess kittens in a bucket of water. Many of us may remember. Aghast at the inhumanness of our parents, we stood watching with wide eyes and fast-beating heart the whole operation. Then, tortured by the sight of the wet, still bodies, we buried them to the accompaniment of slow tears, and perhaps we put a stick in the ground to mark the spot and laid some flowers there, too. We knew they would have played with us, would have fought with abandon over a feather that tickled their noses before they became too dignified for such pranks; would have learnt to drink milk from a saucer with many splutterings and a wetting of feet, and would have clawed and gurgled tigerishly upon being introduced to their first piece of raw meat. So. brooding on the ruthlessness of life and the finality of death, there drifted over our young spirits a shadow, and for a day—or even two—we were very, very bitter. Most of us, lacking the heart to kill, have tried to get rid of a eat some time or other. I did once. We had a cat named Henery. He tried several times to eat the canary, so I decided to excommunicate him from the household. I put him in a sack and covered up his head, twisted him round a dozen times to confuse his sense of direction, walked four miles to a desolate spot, and then let him out. “Good-bye, Henery,” I said, sadly. “You have brought it on yourself.” Then I ran until I was out. of breath. Away behind me in the darkness was Henery. I knew it was cruel. Henery might become a mangy wanderer in search of food, a low scavenger cat. a sneak-thief, an Apache cat. Hopefully I pictured his being found and adopted iby some kind person who had plenty of cream and no canary. He might even fall in with an old maid who would tie pink ribbons round his neck In the morning I found Henery on the back door-step, rather peevishly washing his face. Sad Partings. Now. if we can be strong enough- we may take our cats to the keeper of the S.P.C.A.’s lethal box and have them painlessly and surely disposed of. The introduction of this service is only in keeping with what is done in England, where such lethal boxes are supported by public subscription. I went to interview the Keeper of the Box. She—it was a lady—had neither the appearance nor the manner of an executioner —because, you see, her mission is mercy. I told her my particular mission, and she asked me inside. She moved toward a handsome cabinet, and I concluded we were going to hear some gramophone music. But no. She opened the door, and there, behind glass, lay the body of a cat. It had lain down and died under an anaesthetic—in peace.

“The lady who brought that eat sat down and cried bitterly—as if she was at the funeral of a loved one,” said the Keeper of the Box. “Well —she really was. She had had the eat for twelve years.” The Keeper opened her black book, containing the names of all who had brought their cats to the death box. There was the gignature of the lady who had wept—written so. shakily as to be illegible. The cat might almost have been her child.

“Many,” said the Keeper, “weep.” Both the exalted and the lowly brought their animals, and in their affection for the dumb beasts were they all equal. I was told that during the three months the box had been in use 58 cats had been disposed of. The black book was rapidly becoming a considerable chronicle. I did not ask wliat had been done with all the cats afterwards. Perhaps they were carried away by their sorrowing owners to a quiet corner of the orchard for burial. Who knows? Queen Alexandra had her own dogs’ graveyr.rd at Sandringham, and in a corner of England there is a graveyard of considerable size where old ladies lay flowers, as they have done for years, on the tombstones’of departed and lamented pets.