UNWANTED KITTENS

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 11737, 26 January 1924, Page 14

UNWANTED KITTENS

AND SOULLESS NEIGHBOURS. (To the Editor "N.Z. Times.”) Sir, —Some days ago a pathetic letter appeared in your paper asking the S.P.C.A. to declare what should be done with an unwanted kitten wished on to a “Wearied Housekeeper” by a soulless neighbour. My interest was aroused by the naive belief of the writer of the letter* that neighbourly amenities are still existent in Wellington. I should much like to liavo the address of “Wearied Housekeeper,” so that if a vacant house is near by I could move in and ensure as a neighbour one decent socially-inclined person. Probably a work exists on the “Psychology of Neighbours,” and it may explain why it is that the good old days have passed when the smallest of the family was sent next door for a oup of sugar “until Willie comes home from school.” Nowadays all one gets from neighbours is well-considered annoyance. The turning loose of unwanted kittens is a more trifle. There is the hobby fiend, who daily starts carpentering at 5 a.m., Sundays included. Sickness makes no difference to such. The gramophone lunatio is another, and frequently both qualifications exist in the same person. Then the gardener who throws all he can of his truck into hie neighbour’s section. He also sends surreptitiously the flotsam and jetsam from street sweepings (which he gets for nothing into his neighbour’s crop. All the petty devices to annoy, and which could only he devised by a twisted intellect, are practised. Some of the perpetrators are “respectable” citizens, who have gained a bubble reputation for philanthropy by action of the mouth. There should be a lethal chamber for such men who, by example, train their young to depart from the S-criptural injunction, “Love thy neighbour ‘as thyself.” We are poetically advised that “No man ever offended against his own conscience, but first or last it was avenged upon him for it.” The boches referred to will sing lustily, “Yes, we have no consciences to-day.” Meanwhile, I greet “Wearied Housekeeper” as a relic of old de-. coney. SUFFERER.