A COUNTESS AND HER CATS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6829, 6 October 1883, Page 2 (Supplement)

A COUNTESS AND HER CATS.

At tha Hammersmith Police Court, the Countess de la Torre, residing in Pembroke Square, Kensington, was summoned by Mr. Harding, clerk of the Kensington Vestry,'for keeping a number of cats and dogs in her dwelling rooms, so as to be a nuisance. Thomas Abbott, one of the inspectors of nuisances for the parish, said that in consequence of the abominable 6 bench arising from the house where the defendant occupied four rooms, he inspected them, and found in three eighteen eats and nine dogs kept in the most offensive manner. The animals were running about the stairs and rooms, but were confined to the house. He served her with a notice to discontinue keeping tho catsaud dogs, but she had puid no attention to it. As he was there again*and found the nuisance still existing, there being twelve cats, he asked the magistrate to make an order to abate the nuisance, and also to grant a prohibitory order. In answer to questions, the inspector said the landlady of the house had not raised any objection, hut the neighbours had complained of the nuiuance. The defendant said that she had six little kittens, which tho inspector called ca'iH. Mary O'Donnell, who was a servant in the hcuse, wa3 called, and said it was not fit for a person to live there. She counted twelve cats in the house that day. Tho defendant, in answer to the complainant, said she was a member of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and she took care of the cats of people who were away. She did so to prevent them from being starved. She had promised Mr. Harding and Dr. Dudfield, the medical officer of health, not to keep more than her own four or five cats and two dogs. Mr. Sheil explained that the defendant was liable to a penalty of 20s for each day she kept the animals, He made the order with 4s costs.