HONORING A CAT.

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 July 1908, Page 1

HONORING A CAT.

HOW SHE STOPPED A BURGLARY North Carolina, recently mourned the untimely death of a cat. Emma Avas run over by a train, and avo are told that Avhon the train crew found Avkat it Avas they had run over, “they all gathered about the spot in that bat-off attitude Avhicli they might have assumed about the grave of a departed great man.” For Emma Avas a noble animal. Since the night of a burglary at the town of Emma in 1901, when she frustrated a robbery, she had been most tenderly cared for by the community. On that night a clerk named Alexander, avlio slept in the store-and-post-olfice building, Avas called to the door by loud knocking. On opening it, he was confronted by two masked men, avlio pointed revolvers at him and ordered him to open the safe. Alexander had to obey, though tho safe contained a large sum of money. As he knelt on the floor to get at the combination, be revolved in bis mind schemes to foil the robbers, but with those barrels trained on him, he decided to reject them all. As the door swung open, one robber laid bis revolver on top of the safe and stepped up to see Avhat Avas inside. Tho cat had been viewing these proceedings with alarm from behind the store, and now decided to act. Taking off a sugar barrel, she leaped at the crouching robber, upset him, and ploughed his face mercilessly Avitli her claAvs. Tho other robber turned his bend for an instant to see Avhat was happening, and in that instant Alexander snatched the revolver from tho safe and shot him. A fierce struggle ensued, which resulted in Alexander being shot and battered for dead, but the robbers made off without securing any plunder Roused by the noise, neighbors were soon on the trail, and before daybreak the tAvo robbers and two accomplices were captured. Alexander’s case seemed hopeless, but the girl be Avas engaged to married him, and this pulled him through. Emma became a State heroine. The postmaster appointed her official mouser at tho store with all the privileges and emoluments of tho place. When she Avas run over, tho trainman brought her body to Ibo store, and next day she Avas buried with imposing ceremonies Avhicli nearly everybody in toAvn- attended. Just to round off the story, avo are told she Avas the mother of 172 kittens, and that one of the surviving offspring Avould probably bo harder to buy than a child of the same age.